Thursday’s Workwear Report: Washable Stretch Silk Split-Neck Blouse
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Our daily workwear reports suggest one piece of work-appropriate attire in a range of prices.
I’m in the market for some long-sleeved blouses for the days when I feel like wearing a blazer is just too formal.
This washable silk blouse from Quince looks beautifully sophisticated and has just a touch of stretch to give it a perfect fit. I’m leaning towards this deep forest green color because dark academia is my vibe this winter, but it also comes in six other solid colors.
The blouse is $89.90 at Quince and comes in sizes XS-XL.
Sales of note for 1/15:
- Nordstrom – Designer clearance up to 70% off
- Ann Taylor – Up to 40% off your purchase, including new arrivals + extra 50% off sale
- Banana Republic Factory – Up to 50% off + extra 20% off
- Brooks Brothers – Extra 25% off clearance, already up to 60% off
- Express – 30-70% off all sweaters
- J.Crew – Up to 40% off peak-winter styles + up to 70% off sale styles
- J.Crew Factory – 40-70% off everything + extra 60% off clearance
- Lo & Sons – Winter sale, up to 50% off — reader favorites include this laptop tote, this backpack, and this crossbody
- M.M.LaFleur – Extra 25% off sale with code + try code CORPORETTE15 for 15% off
- Neiman Marcus – Up to 70% off select sale styles
- Talbots – Semi-Annual Red Door Sale! 50% off + extra 25% off all markdowns + Red Door Deals $24.50+
Has anyone here actually purchased the featured blouse? What are your thoughts on the quality and fit? Do you think it would work for someone 5’2”?
I returned another Quince washable silk item because the fabric was very thin and cheap.
Yeah, I think it’s all over the map on Quince quality. I have some hits, but also a silk piece that had such a deep crease from shipping that it’s almost unwearable even after washing and steaming.
I should have returned mine. I hate it. It looks cheap. And I love other Quince items, so it’s not the brand for me, it their washable silk fabric.
I wanted to ask the same. I really like this style but often the v neck is to deep because I am short
Same. Save your money
Quince silk is really, really thin. I like them OK, but I don’t think it’s worth $89.
Out of curiosity where are you finding thicker silk for these prices? (Or anything even 3x these prices?) this is why people have preferred poly blends the past few decades. I just got a pair of the quince silk PJs and like them a lot.
Is Dillard’s Antonio Milani still decent quality? I haven’t purchased for so long.
Yes
TBH, I have been buying nicer poly items and not silk at all. Do I love the environmental impact? No, I don’t, but my budget is my budget.
MM LaFleur and Brooks Brothers recently. LilySilk previously. I do have some Quince silk tees that were pretty perfect for getting through a summer trial in Miami and remain in pretty good shape, though they are not cut perfectly for my body and are a bit thin (but that was a feature in these circumstances).
I hate pretty much everything I’ve ever bought from Quince with the sole exception of these blouses. That said, if you wash them you destroy them – they’re really dry clean only. They are a decent thin top under a sweater or blazer and fill that hole in my wardrobe.
literally SAME. I am convinced the influencers just get a really good % of sales paid to them. Nothing is worth the few $ I save vs. buying the OG good it’s trying to copy.
Not this one, but I have a silk button down from Quince and it was not good quality-got picks/snags very, very easily
Quince silk quality is really bad. Thin and dull. And the cuts are unflattering. Kobi Halperin and L’Agence are available on sale and the fabric quality and fit are much superior.
I’m not sure whether it was this exact one, but I recently purchased two washable silk blouses from Quince. The ivory one is too thin to wear on its own, but I wanted it to go under sweaters and it’s good for that. The navy one looks nice on its own. However! The post-wash wrinkles…. and my reluctance to crank up the iron hot enough to actually smooth them make me think this isn’t really washable from a practical standpoint. Maybe with a steamer, I need a new one.
It doesn’t work with a steamer either. I commented above that they’re drug clean only. If you do that, they look good but you have to dry clean.
I have never done this with a blouse, but I do have a 100% silk summer pijama from intimissimi. I hand wash and after rinsing I put to dry soaking wet in a hanger in my shower (no wringing the cloth at all). It dries remarkably wrinkle free, and if I wash in the morning it is normally dry by the end of the day.
10:28 here and thank you! I’ll try soaking wet on the hanger next, I just wore the ivory one again yesterday. I mostly fixed the collar with an iron and wore my hair down to further camouflage and the sweater covered the rest of the wrinkles.
In my experince, hand wash, hang dry doesn’t do enough to dewrinkle Quince silk, and steaming is a PITA and not 100% effective. On the advice of someone here, I started actually putting my Quince silk in the dryer on delicate for 20ish min (I’m in an apartment building with commercial dryers so YMMV). It is reasonably effective, at least as good as steaming and a lot easier. I realize it will shorten the top’s life, but it also means I actually wear it, so I am comfortable with that compromise. And I am not buying any more of them.
I started re-watching The Closer. The background music in it is superb. But am I wrong to be loving Kyra Sedgwick’s early 2000s southern-lady police chief outfits? Printed dresses. Tailored jackets. Where can I find especially the dresses now? Jackets are having a moment but I need to wear an OUTFIT.
I would still 100% wear her makeover dress.
Hobbs?
GM! Has anyone found mouth tape that really sticks esp for a nighttime mouth breather? I don’t use product at night but it still won’t stay all night.
I have a deviated septum so I am also a mouth breather. Did your doctor recommend mouth tape? I’ve read that people who are actual mouth breathers can’t get enough air through their nose so if our mouth is taped shut, it can cause issues.
The medical professional who told you to try it can probably recommend some places to get it.
I’m curious after emptying the pantry. How many coolers and what sizes do you all own? I have from a 55 qt cooler we use for car camping and vacations where we bring groceries to avoid store trips down to smaller insulated wine totes and 3 in between. Not counting lunch boxes that are insulated.
About the same- 1 giant one, another big one, two small ones, and some insulated totes. I didn’t actually buy most of them- some were left by people visiting or from work- but they all get used fairly regularly.
Big cooler, inherited not great medium cooler (that Igloo one everybody has that’s blue or red with the top that flops to the side), and then we actively purchased another medium sized cooler for road trips which fits between the seats in the car (nicer one). Oh, and then a cooler backpack which we use for the beach and skiing and such.
Relevant is that we have a family of 5, I like my children significantly better when we’re all outdoors, and we have a suburban house with significant storage. If we got rid of one it would be the not great medium cooler but every time I think we’re going to get rid of it, it seems to come in handy.
I think the cooler count is directly related to how often you go on road trips or camping. Most of the suburban people I know (who rarely drive further than an hour or venture into the wilderness) own that ubiquitous Igloo cooler, an insulated grocery tote, and maaaybe a small lunchbox style bag. The Igloo cooler holds drinks when they host a barbecue and the tote lives in their trunk.
As an apartment dweller I just have a beverage tub for parties and a giveaway tote that I wouldn’t have bought on my own.
Probably too many, but they all get used.
1 – A giant, giant Igloo on wheels that we inherited from my FIL.
2 – A medium-sized Coleman that is great for road trips because it holds quite a bit without taking up a ton of vehicle space.
3 – My new favorite, an RTIC waterproof 30-can cooler that is aaaamazing for river and lake outings.
4 – A small soft-sided cooler that we use only for beverages. DH has had it since college.
5 – My worst cooler purchase: a stand-up cooler from Suncast that is a piece of patio furniture. Thoughts we’d use it a ton for parties, and we really don’t.
Has anyone else seen the Millennial Inheritance reels? They hit close to home for me and half of my college friends all dealing with various aging elders and emptying out of homes. I will give the prior generations mad props for actually entertaining in their homes. I am vowing to get back to that with my newly-inherited property dishes. And to make sure no one has to deal with so much stuff from me. Baby steps . . .
By all means get rid of stuff you do not use. But the idea that you would discard a cooler (or anything else) that you actually use to save your heirs the trouble of disposing of it is absurd.
I am so tired on people on-line whining about this issue. Fortunately, I have never met a single person IRL who thought this way. Is cleaning out your parents’ or grandparents’ house fun? Of course not. But it is the last thing you can do for the people you loved and who loved you.
Yeah, honestly – now that my parents are both gone, I feel guilty for pushing my father to get rid of things he wasn’t using and “I” thought he didn’t need. What the hell was I doing? It was his house, his things, his right to keep them. And how selfish was I being?
He at least let me move a few things so it was safer to move around, and he was clean and certainly wasn’t a hoarder. How rude and self centered I was to think I knew what was “best”.
For what my parents did for me (and left to me and my siblings), we could afford to take the time necessary to settle their estate and give away their belongings that we didn’t want ourselves. That is the least we could do.
Huh, not a one.
I live in a house but we have mice in the basement and attic and a storage shed. So the giant cooler is carefully cleaned and dried and lives in my closet. I have long wanted a fancy closet but how do you explain to a designer that it needs to house a Carolina blue giant cooler from Walmart (clone of the Yeti and worth every penny of the $90ish I paid for it). I have a pantry but the cooler is too big for it. If I were closer to post-grad, I’d just use it as a side table same as I do camping or at the beach.
Heh you tell the designer what you need and they go with it! Do it!
With the caveat that we neither camp nor take road trips where we bring our own food, we have one (maybe 50 liter?) larger cooler that we mostly use on our patio for drinks for outdoor parties, and one 25 liter cooler that we use for beach days.
We own zero!
One large-ish Coleman with wheels that we use for drinks or ice when BBQing or hosting, one medium soft-sided Yeti cool that is impractical but was a pricey gift so I keep it. We also use these for Costco trips if we are running other errands or driving distances after (like a couple hours road trip for the weekend). One collapsible insulated tote for grocery shopping that lives in my car trunk.
A large insulated bag for weekend trips (live close to lake houses). Medium hard cooler that never gets used. Lots of small ones since I’ve had dogs that will only eat refrigerated food and now one that’s diabetic. Husband and I also take medicine now that needs refrigeration so good to have. I do about two small roadtrips for work each year and will be handy.
3-a large yeti we use for situations where it doesn’t have to go far (tailgating, day hiking trips where it stays in the car), a medium sized coleman on wheels (which we bought for a trip out West where we were moving between different lodges and wanted food with us–you can check coolers, so we used it as a “checked bag”), and a little small one that holds a few drinks for a day at the beach.
One giant hard sided cooler and one large hard sided cooler (used for longer car-camping trips), one medium (used occasionally for groceries or pool/ beach trips in summer) and two small soft ones left over from the daycare packed-lunch/ pumping days.
We have the Yeti 65, and insulated bags to take to the grocery store. The Yeti is big enough that we can put a turkey/roast/brisket in it to keep it warm while resting at holidays. Otherwise, we use it a few times a year for out of town trips.
We have a big cooler that we use for camping, a smaller but still pretty big cooler with wheels that we use for lake trips or for things where it is easier to pull the cooler with wheels. We use both for drinks when we have parties or sometimes one or the other. We also have an insulated backpack that we use when we go to the beach. We have an insulated bag for groceries but I honestly never use it. We live close to the grocery store and don’t usually run errands after so we just bring everything home right away. I also have an insulated lunch tote that I use almost everyday I am in the office.
Lots. We live in an area where power can be shut off and it’s easier to fill a cooler with ice than our refrigerator.
We have one giant Coleman that is almost never used, and two insulated picnic totes that we use for the Hollywood Bowl. We are not campers.
Too many to list. I’m not sure why.
Zero. We don’t travel with food (no kids).
One real big one, the mediocre medium igloo, and one soft side cooler that’s too big to be a lunch bag that fills all the gaps. It was a work Christmas present one year that has been surprisingly useful.
At the height of his collection, my dad (white, suburban boomer) had 22 coolers. How do I know? They were all labeled and numbered. This was before Yeti and Rtic were a thing, so we’re talking good ole fashioned Coleman and Igloo coolers.
Over the years (thank goodness), he realized this was, indeed, ridiculous and would start to go to family and neighborhood parties and just…leave the cooler behind. With an instruction that it was theirs now. This was welcomed 85% of the time because the hosts were usually younger folks who hadn’t amassed quite the cooler collection. The remaining coolers that he didn’t unload this way were dropped off early on a Sunday morning to the steps of the fraternity house my parents drive by on their way to church. They LOVED it.
So, 22 is too many. 3 is about right over here ;-)
This is a great story — thanks for sharing.
I love this story.
-Ancient big Coleman that we used to use for camping that my husband will not get rid of because he has an emotional attachment.
-Big RTIC that we actually use for camping because it holds ice longer. Also used for parties.
-Cute small pastel hard-sided Igloo cooler with a shoulder strap that the teen uses for the pool.
-Picnic-sized soft-sided cooler that gets the most use, for the pool and skiing.
-Big Trader Joe’s insulated bags that live in the car for groceries.
-Insulated lunch tote for each member of the family.
-A couple of the mini Trader Joe’s insulated totes from when they went viral. (see teenager, above)
recently turned 40 and have been thinking it’s time to step up my makeup game a bit. I have never been a huge makeup person, but I have a routine that takes me about 5ish minutes and have generally been happy with. Concealer stick as needed, eyeliner pencil (brown/eggplant colored), mascara, BB cream, brow pencil, blush/highlighter and/or bronzer. Top with setting spray and/or powder depending on schedule and weather. I always think I look pretty good at home, but then out and about, on zoom, in the office bathroom mirror, etc, I look a little… unfinished? Washed out? Lip color helps but I find lipstick super drying (not to mention hard to get the color right) and even tinted lip balm isn’t great for all day, and I find myself going back to my trusty aquaphor.
I’d like to upgrade myself here, ideally with some support. What is the best way to go about this? I don’t want to look like a YouTuber, and don’t want to go to a department store makeup counter (do those even exist anymore?) and be wedded to a specific brand. My current routine is all drugstore brands, and while I have the budget for more, I haven’t felt like my experiments with “high end” brands were worth it. I’m also not looking to start a 30 minute, 15 product makeup routine – just add some polish and oomph.
Is this a job for a Sephora consult? Or a salon? I am in Philly, so specific recommendations are welcome!
99% sure there is a blue mercury in philly which is the same as sephora but in my experience a little higher end and the women working there (at least the two i’ve gone to) are older women not girls which i think is probably better for you. they’ll do it for free and you buy some products. you can also do a department store brand (nars, bobby brown, clinique) i would make a proper appointment and call ahead, don’t just walk in. jones road may have a store in philly and is definitely targeted towards the middle aged although the only thing that i have from them is miracle balm which i think is overrated. good luck.
Your routine sounds good and reasonable for every day, so if looking washed out is the problem, I wonder if it’s the colors you’re using that need to be updated. I will say that lip color is the #1 thing that makes me look alive and awake. I’ve had good luck with Clinique for non-drying options.
+1. With this mix of products the issue is probably the color. Your complexion isn’t as vibrant as you age so the tones that worked for you 5-10 years ago might not anymore.
For lip color I like the Dior Addict Lip Glow. It has a good amount of pigment without being chalky.
+1 for this brand.
I am older and have almost the exact same routine as you (albeit foundation, not BB cream). My suggestions are the Bobbi Brown eyeshadow sticks and blush. Not drug store but not super expensive. I was using a drugstore blush and the BB is so pigmented and with such staying power, I’m having trouble getting used to seeing it on my face in the mirror!
I hate to say it, but I’d swap bb cream for foundation and see if the blush/bronzer pop more.
I have a similar routine to OP’s and am finding this to be the case sometimes too and I think it may be that these “lighter products” don’t have the same staying power as traditional makeup.
For lipstick that’s easy and non-drying, I like the Dior Lip Glow 001 and the Lancome version of that. Not a ton of staying power either, but if I remember to reapply it really helps me look put together.
Yeah, I didn’t want to say that, but it would probably help. TBH, BB cream does absolutely nothing for me and has no staying power. I look so much better with a medium-weight foundation that is sheered out.
Check out YouTuber emilynoel83 who is very much NOT “a YouTuber.” She’s a former news anchor turned SAHM who loves trying out drugstore makeup. She does the annual Emily Awards, rating the best drugstore products in various categories. She also has 5 minute face videos.
Are there other youtubers anyone would recommend, particularly for minimalist and over 40 looks? Makeup is a skill I never properly learned!
Some of these scenarios could be about the lighting and not your makeup at all. If you have a ring light for zoom, you might notice a difference. It also may be the color you’re wearing near your face.
I wear less makeup than you but what I think helps a lot for me is brightening under my eyes. I don’t wear foundation at all because I don’t need to improve my skin tone. Maybe go to Sephora and see if a new color of blush makes a difference. I like the Westman Atelier and Milk cream blushes.
I’d start with updating colors rather than products — you don’t sound like a makeup-y person (I say that because your routine sounds like mine; apologies if I’m mis-reading) and every time I’ve tried to update products I end up not using them. I’ve had more luck with punching up my blush color; doing tinted moisturizer instead of BB cream, etc.
In addition to the suggestions above — do you use a magnifying mirror? A lighted one, if the light isn’t super-bright in your bathroom or wherever you apply your makeup? I got one when I was in my early 40s, and it was a revelation. Even if you don’t need reading glasses yet, your eyes may not be focusing as well and so you may not be seeing where a little more coverage or different color would be helpful.
Yes! I have specific advice for you! Christine W at Nordstroms in KOP is a beauty stylist who works across the brands-practical, doesn’t pressure you, and in our age range. You can ask at the counters, but I frequently see her there Wednesday afternoons/evening (when I do my returns at the mall!). She helped me with all my basics and I love what she recommended- natural but polished.
Please consider taking a few minutes out of your day to call your senators and representatives to demand action again ICE after the brutal murder of an innocent woman and mother in Minneapolis yesterday. Calls count for more than emails. Any resistance counts for more than none.
Script please, and I will do it
do you not know how to talk
Script reduces the friction and makes it a lot easier. Will help generate a higher volume of us who can quickly call and try to drive impact. People offer/ask for scripts all the time for calling elected officials. I don’t get this response.
Do people react well if a large portion of callers all read the same script?
The staff don’t really care. They just note in their tracking software what the call was about, (issue, support or oppose).
Needing a script shows a fundamental lack of understanding of the issue. Understand the issue, and you don’t need a script. And “don’t shoot civilians in the head” is a remarkably simple issue to understand.
I swear people just keep getting dumber and lazier.
Everthing I’ve heard from people who work in congressional offices says yes, script is fine. They’re just recording # of calls, if they’re a constituent & position. Doesn’t need extra points for originality or a super long call or anything.
Former Hill staffer here, and we don’t care if you have a script. Because honest to goodness, when phones are ringing off the hook all day, all we’re doing is marking you as a tick mark in a for or against column on a notepad that we total up at the end of the day. We tell the boss, “Hey, the phones were crazy today, we had X calls in favor and Y calls against.” In slower times, yes, we are recording your name and other details, but the only thing about the substance of your comments we record is for or against.
lady, you could’ve just kept it moving but chose to respond like a dick for what?
Because it is embarrassing to need a script for this.
Script sharing is like activism 101. It’s embarrassing you think she’s asking for herself vs. nudging others, so a larger response is likely
dude, really. Shaming people who ask for how to do a thing. Is this 1960? At least they are trying, what is your shaming accomplishing?
If we have a citizenry that can’t manage to make a call and say “shooting people bad” without someone literally feeding them the words, we are doing much worse as a country than I thought.
At that point, just feed the script to an AI bot and let the bot make the call for you.
“Please take every action possible to stop more ICE murders.”
As someone who has worked professionally in activism, I think the shaming is wrongheaded.
On principle, the people answering the calls need to know some basic things: are you a constituent? Are you a registered voter (sometimes helpful)? They don’t care what non-constituents think.
So a script helps.
Pragmatically, people don’t care about what you care about. There is a LOT wrong with this world and only so much energy to go around. Insisting that people care about your own issue doesn’t make them more invested; it means you don’t accomplish what you want to.
As a psychological matter, some people find these calls to be intimidating, or they wonder if they should be original or how long the call should be or what the “ask” is. So a script helps enormously.
But if you like losing, by all means, shame people who ask questions.
If someone doesn’t understand an issue well enough to make a simple phone call about it and/or doesn’t feel strongly enough to be motivated to do so, they shouldn’t. Simple as that. You care, you call. You don’t, you don’t. Easy.
Download the 5 Calls app. It will give you a script and the numbers for your congressional delegation members.
Hello Senator/Representative,
I am a constituent from [zip code]. I am horrified by the ICE activity in Minneapolis and their brutal murder of Renee Good. I am also horrified that the administration is actively lying about her murder. Please do anything you can to stop ICE and protect our communities.
Thank you,
Constituent
Repeat every day.
5calls.org has a good one that I used.
5calls dot org has scripts
“impeach Kritsti Noem and defund ICE, please.”
Thank you for the reminder. I just left messages for Senators Booker and Kim. I actually broke down crying during the Kim call, which may or may not be effective but I feel much better having let them know how important this is to their constituents.
Serious questions: Is it worth calling if all your representatives are reliably on your side?
Yes. Very worth it.
In general, I think yes. I think it is helpful for reps to know that their constituents are aware of particular issues and care about them. Ideally it will motivate them to act more forcefully than they otherwise might, even if they already agreed. That may not be as true for an issue that is already very high priority. But you could consider acknowledging their support. I have no special insider knowledge, but that’s take.
I always do to either show my support for their actions or urge them to actually do something. Does your rep get off his/her ass? Mine sometimes does.
Yes, because so few of our Democratic reps are truly mobilizing or doing anything useful these days. We have to kick them.
In an era of cell phones that keep their original area codes, how do you really know who is a constituent? Just assume that people are honest?
If they’re asking, you’ll have to provide a zip code or address. Very few people will go to the trouble of looking up an address in a district they don’t live in, and those few will be so few they won’t matter.
Out of curiosity, which U.S. cities do people on this board consider VHCOL/HCOL/MCOL? I’m based in DC, which I consider VHCOL but I’ve never lived in SF/NYC. I’m not American and while my home country has 1-2 HCOL cities, I’m from a place with a much lower cost of living.
This all came to mind this week while I was signing my kids up for summer camp, paying upwards of $800/week (including aftercare). Out of curiosity I looked up camps in my hometown and they are more list $200 USD/week (for significantly better activities, mind you), with complimentary (!) before and aftercare. It would be almost comical if it wasn’t so outrageous!
I’m in DC and I would not consider it VHCOL- I think of it as HCOL. I mean, just a comparison of home prices to NY or SF makes it pretty clear they are on a different level. Also, I have found the average camp prices around here to be $500-600, so I’m assuming you’re going for some pretty fancy camps. The DC rec camps are absurdly cheap ($130 for two weeks of 9-5 care), although hard to get into.
Yea, the ones I’m signing up for are also in that range, but then they tack on another $250 for aftercare, which I need. I’m in Montgomery count and going to try to get into some of those, but MC is so big some would be a significant commute in the wrong direction for many!
+1. DC is definitely not VHCOL.
Same, I live just outside DC and consider it HCOL. VHCOL to me is Bay area and NYC. Maybe parts of LA.
VHCOL is only Bay Area and NY in my opinion. LA, DC, Boston, etc., are HCOL. Basically the entire Midwest is LCOL, although obviously Chicago is more expensive than Kansas City. I guess I’d call rural Midwest cities VLCOL.
Same, except I’d probably call Chicago MCOL. But if you only HCOL and LCOL then it’s LCOL.
Yeah, I assumed no MCOL, but otherwise agree that Chicago is the definition of MCOL.
I moved out of Chicago (like many people in the pandemic) and would still call it HCOL. Less than Boston for sure but still expensive. I’m in a MCOL now (Raleigh, NC). An hour away from me could be called LCOL.
In no world is Chicago HCOL. Raleigh is LCOL.
An hour outside Raleigh is VLOCL.
+1. Chicago is closer to LCOL than it is to HCOL.
Agree that Chicago is MCOL, and prices are rising fast. It is a huge city with lots of great housing stock in areas that are rapidly being gentrified. Also there is a lot of new construction.
I agree with this. So funny how things change — when I graduated from law school in 1988, the law firm branch offices in San Francisco paid LESS than LA (which paid less than NY) because the cost of living there was lower than. Crazy.
Kid stuff is crazy expensive and I feel that that inflates everything. Y indoor camps and church camps and scout camps are cheap. Fancy camps in the Va/NC mountains were $$$ years ago but the people who go to them tend to already donexpensive things like country clubs.
DC is at the bridge of H and MCOL for cities. You can live far out and commute in. Lots of military and federal workers who are not really high paid live there. Also lots of students and nonprofit workers. Most people live like grad students because they don’t tend to have kids. Then everyone either marries and has kids and leaves back for where they are from or becomes a lifer. But for a fancy safe close area it is expensive. NYC is just in another universe from that.
Ha, hard disagree. The DC would be considered medium cost-of-living with housing prices being what they are. Even in the far suburbs where you pay less for the house, you’re paying for the commute, which can be hours.
Former Bay Area-ian, current small city Midwesterner. Only Bay Area and NYC are VHCOL to me. HCOL is SoCal, Seattle, Boston, DC, Honolulu and maybe some others. I think it’s more about housing than other things. I assume summer camp in LA and SF is fairly similar but housing is not.
If you want to be really aghast, our parks & rec camp is $150/week for care from 7 am to 6 pm. It’s not great quality though. My kids tried it once and never wanted to go back. We typically pay $200-400 for speciality camps with shorter hours. I looked at camps in NYC once because my in-laws live there and they were over $1k/week, at least for the kind of camps we wanted.
My kids also hated the least expensive camps and that got more accuse as they got older and realized that many friends were on vacation and they were decidedly not.
We travel a lot so my kids complain we take too many vacations and they need more time with their friends. I think the grass is always greener with kids :)
But I agree as kids get older, it’s more likely they’ll want to do something relevant to their interests like a theater camp or science camp or zoo camp and these camps are not dirt cheap even in LCOL areas.
VHCOL: San Fran, NYC
HCOL: Boston, DC, LA, San Diego, etc. Chicago straddled the line.
MCOL: Nashville, Milwaukee, Cincinnati, Raleigh, Phoenix, most cities in Texas, etc.
LCOL: Knoxville, KCMO, etc.
I live in a LCOL city (a half million people in the metropolitan area, nearest real airport is an hour away). Camp is $2,000 for the summer, 7:30 am to 5:30 pm.
If Chicago straddles that line, so does Philly
Really? I hear Philly is super affordable but then I’m in the Bay Area
So I live in San Francisco and travel a lot for work and just haven’t found things to be substantially cheaper elsewhere. Obviously our housing costs are very high if you’re moving here now (I bought 25 years ago so not an issue for me). I know people leave for lower costs of living but restaurants, clothes, manicures, haircuts, etc all seem to cost roughly the same regardless of where I am in the US. I’ve never really understood moving for lower costs when you take such a salary hit.
But housing is far and away the biggest expense, especially for people without kids. I don’t think you take much of a salary hit moving from SF to a place like LA or Seattle, and if you’re talking about moving to a truly LCOL or VLCOL place, housing is going to be so much cheaper that it’s going to offset the pay cut. When we moved from California to the Midwest, we bought a large single family home in a great school district for <$400k. At the time it would have cost multiple millions to own a comparable house anywhere decent in the Bay Area and even if we'd compromised on a much smaller house or townhome, we were looking at $1.5M minimum to buy anything in the Bay Area within reasonable commuting distance. Spending $500k vs $1.5M on housing allows for a huge pay cut without any lifestyle cut. We're much more comfortable here on much lower incomes.
Manicures aren’t why my budget is tight though.
It was merely an example of a service I’ve gotten in LCOL cities.
Manicures are kind of unique because it’s a service almost uniformly provided by immigrants, often ones who are not here legally, and there’s a much greater supply of that kind of labor in SF and NY. Most things are cheaper outside of big cities, though not to the degree housing is.
I live in NYC. Services for lots of things are probably sometimes cheaper due to scale/supply but I agree that this is not what makes it expensive to live here.
To the original poster on this – if you bought 25 years ago and don’t have children that need daycare/afterschool/summer camp and/or have team sports, SF and NYC are probably not that insanely expensive. It’s the housing and childcare services that really push these markets into the HCOL category.
Exactly
Hmm this has not been my experience. I live in NYC, and I generally find things qutie a bit cheaper when I travel to other areas of the country.
And housing, as the prior Anon, mentioned is obviously the big ones.
Agree. Hotels, catering for work events, gas, are much cheaper in less metropolitan places.
Yeah, I’m the person who moved from CA to the Midwest and while haircuts don;t scale like housing does, they are noticeably cheaper to me here. I don’t think it’s accurate that nothing except housing is cheaper in LCOL areas. I think the average restaurant bill in SF is quite a bit higher too. SF does have great hole-in-the-wall cheap food but most people want to eat in nicer restaurants once in a while and the bill for those kind of restaurants is much higher there.
The one big thing I noticed that’s comparable or more expensive here is cleaning services. I think there’s so much more supply and demand in HCOL areas for those services that it keeps the price competitive.
I live in Palo Alto, and haircuts and restaurants here certainly are not in line with what I was paying in my Midwest home town!
My small city just got a fancy steakhouse but before that place opened I don’t think we had a restaurant here that charged more than $35 or $40 for an entree That’s definitely not Palo Alto pricing (although I do miss the greater Bay Area/Napa food scene! one of the things I miss most about living there).
How much did you pay for your Palo Alto home? My grandmother’s house sold there in 2009 for an insane amount and then 4x as much in 2022.
I rent an apartment for about $5k a month. I cannot afford to buy something that isn’t a tear down in East Palo Alto.
Right?! And is balayage really $600 everywhere?
Yeah yall are basically affirming my point – new housing is cheaper elsewhere, but unless you’re in that market, life in general isn’t much cheaper.
Huh? Pretty much everyone is saying that other things are cheaper too. And also we don’t have a time machine and can’t go back in time and buy a house in the Bay Area in 1999, so obviously housing costs are extremely relevant for most people.
What? I get sticker shock on groceries in HCOL neighborhoods even when I’m just visiting.
Same, I’m shocked by the prices for pretty much everything when we visit my in-laws in NYC. Granted, they live in midtown Manhattan and there are more affordable parts of the city, but I don’t understand this comment at all.
I am a prior commenter, and I said the exact opposite of this. I live in NYC, and I find life in general to be MUCH cheaper when I go to other parts of the country.
I live in NYC and find that restaurants, groceries, gas, and activities are all much, much cheaper when I travel to other parts of the country…
when i lived in nyc, manicures were actually the cheapest there. i live in Houston and my dad lives in a suburb of DC (the maryland side) – every time he comes to visit he remarks on how much less expensive things are here in Houston. He knows what his items cost at the grocery store, restaurants, etc. And at least in a place like Houston, some jobs – investment banking, big law, medicine (certain specialties actually get paid more here than in places like Boston), salaries can be the same as in NYC, but housing is so much less (and taxes and gas, etc.)….there are many other reasons as to why I do not advise moving to TX
I grew up in Houston and live in the MD suburbs of DC now. Agreed that housing, services, and groceries are a ton more expensive in MD, plus taxes are higher. I love the politics here but would like to import the HEB
This is a major point that’s being overlooked in this thread. Chicago and Houston and other much more affordable cities pay on the NY/SF scale for Big Law. I tend to think the whole “taking a massive pay cut to move” city is massively overhyped. Yes overall wages are lower in LCOL cities than HCOL cities. But a large part of that is that there are far fewer “fancy” jobs in LCOL cities. A person who has one of those fancy jobs isn’t necessarily taking a huge pay cut to move there.
And then there are other industries like academia where the local cost of living has almost no relevance to pay. Very prestigious schools like Stanford will often assist faculty members with obtaining housing, because otherwise they couldn’t attract and retain talent. But most schools aren’t at that level of prestige and State U in California doesn’t pay much more than State U in Nebraska.
As an academic, this is correct. I’ve worked and studied at several University of California campuses, and it causes major issues in recruiting and retaining staff and faculty. It’s also a big problem for students, many of whom are homeless or living in their cars (8% of UC students, and it’s much higher for CSU and community college students).
Yeah, my husband is a professor and although you don’t get that much say in where you move, he focused his tenure-track job search on the Midwest and parts of the South (I didn’t want to live in the Deep South) because we knew the salary would be pretty much the same no matter where we landed and it would go a lot father here.
Yep, this is why it’s so hard for California’s CSU system to hire. Professors make poverty wages, K-12 schoolteachers make more and that is saying something
I don’t understand why you’re questioning people moving for a lower cost of living just because the Bay Area is affordable if you happen to have bought a house there 25 years ago. People moving away from the Bay Area today because of the cost of living obviously didn’t buy a house there 25 years ago.
I’m not, I’m questioning whether things other than housing are really exponentially cheaper elsewhere.
You said “I’ve never really understood moving for lower costs when you take such a salary hit.”
The answer is that if you’re moving to a similarly HCOL place or even some MCOL places like Chicago you don’t necessarily take that much of a salary hit, and if you’re moving to a really LCOL place like the rural Midwest/South, housing is so much cheaper that the salary hit is worth it. Presumably these people who are moving didn’t buy home in the Bay Area 25 years ago.
Actually, for many it’s the CA retirement plan. And maybe not leaving CA but moving to much cheaper parts of the state.
I don’t think anywhere is LCOL anymore. DH is from a very rural area in a flyover state. House prices are low. Wages are also low.
But childcare? I was shocked to learn from MIL that the only daycare in their town is charging $4500/mo. They have a waiting list and are one of two or three daycares in the entire county (which takes 2-3 hours to drive across). That’s basically what I pay my nanny. When I told her that, she said that nannies start at $40/hr there. I’m paying market for my area, which is $30/hr.
Geez. I’m in Boston and our nanny is $30/hr on the books. She is American/native English speaker. I know I could find someone closer to $22-$25 if we paid in cash and didn’t need a licensed driver.
Yeah, some very LCOL places are childcare deserts and have disproportionately high daycare costs. But you have to remember that in these places a ton of women don’t work, especially once they have multiple kids, so the vast majority of families are not paying these prices.
fwiw in my LCOL city which has very affordable housing but sounds like not as rural as your DH’s hometown, daycare centers start in the low $1,000s and the fancier ones are in the low-mid $2,000s. So it’s cheaper than in HCOL places but not by the same factor housing is.
Of course women stay home if childcare is $4k/mo. They can’t afford to go to work. And not in a, my salary barely covers daycare so why work, kind of way. When you have to make close to six figures just to pay for daycare, that’s just not a cost most families can float.
In really rural areas, it goes the other direction. Most women marry and have babies young, and want to stay home, so there isn’t any demand for childcare, so there isn’t any childcare offered and the price for what little there is is exorbitant.
I’m not saying that women dropping out of the workforce because of childcare costs isn’t an issue – it definitely is, in all kinds of L/M/HCOL cities. But that’s not typically what is happening in these ultra rural areas that are childcare deserts.
This is true. For doctor or healthcare couples in my LCOL family area, it is $$$ because it’s often done by a wife or younger granny. I know so many grannies stepping in so their daughters can work.
This right here. I live in a rural, pretty remote area where home prices are low, but winter produce is through the roof and of a quality that would be thrown out in busier towns. Eggs are still >$6/dozen. There’s always a trade off somewhere.
LCOL is relative, so yes, many places are LCOL.
IMO the entire Midwest and South is LCOL except for a few of the largest cities (maybe Chicago, Atlanta, Miami?)
The rural Midwest and South is VLCOL and rural life comes with its own set of issues, some of which have been brought up here. But there are hundreds of smaller cities that don’t have the issues that the rural places do, and are often still very affordable.
We completely agree!
I think VHCOL in North America is Bay Area, Seattle, Toronto/Vancouver, NYC, and (maybe) NYC/NJ close in ‘burbs, mostly because those burbs are equivalent to bay area pricing but you get more square footage.
HCOL is Boston (and close in burbs), CT suburbs (Fairfield County), LA, DC/high end DC burbs.
MCOL is Chicago, Austin, Houston, etc. – big cities but with much lower overall COL.
Real estate drives a lot of costs watching Love It or List It was shocking to me — Canada is so, so expensive in its cities.
Agreed, it’s crazy. I live in the Boston burbs and it’s ‘cheaper’ to me as a NYC transplant but I was shocked to find out how expensive houses were in the ‘nice’ towns in NJ/Westchester/CT when we looked at moving out of the city to buy.
I have lived in both Seattle and SF in the last two years, and they are not in the same tier.
Seattle is 100% not VHCOL.
Ny suburbs. Paying a bit over 1k week for summer camp. But it’d childcare. Full day, includes door to door (literally they will walk into the foyer and take the kid by the hand) and food. There are ways to do this much cheaper but I find there’s a gap where the cheaper camps are not compatible with a full time job and better suited to parents who stay home or have a nanny. Also, my older kid prefers the sports camps which really require a ton of parental schlepping in the middle of the day. All this to say I’m happy to throw money at the younger kids full day camp.
The thing to get about the Bay Area – you can drive an hour from San Francisco in every direction and you’ll be lucky to find a single single-family home for under a million. It’ll be 800 square feet with one wall missing from a wildfire or it’ll be in a neighborhood with four shootings a night on the block or both. The schools will be horrific. Home prices in Manteca, which is outside of the Bay Area but within range for “super commuters,” are above $650K.
The other crazy thing – some of the most expensive towns, mainly on the Peninsula, have really mixed or poor school quality. You could pay $2.5 million for a small home and still have a shoddy experience.
The number of people I know in posh Peninsula towns paying for private school is astounding. It’s hard for me to suss out how much of it is genuinely bad public schools vs hypercompetitive Bay Area parenting though.
I’m the Palo Alto poster above and I know people who could send their kids to Gunn and choose not to because they don’t want them to be in that pressure cooker. So some parents are also opting out of even the good schools because of the hypercompetitiveness.
There is definitely a difference in COL between different cities, and I think some of it comes with what is a normalized expenditure. At a simple level, in HCOL areas, both parents work to afford to live there and need childcare, so that becomes an expected expense.
I also notice this with things as basic as clothing. E.g., there are certain brands that you may only see in very posh areas of my MCOL city but that I notice seem ubiquitous in HCOL areas. Similarly, differentiators between different areas of my city are not just the house price, but in some areas, you need to buy the expensive house + private school +private swim/tennis membership etc. None of these would be apparent just by comparing salaries in different areas or childcare costs.
For sure, not having to keep up with the Joneses is definitely an element of it too. Moving from VHCOL to LCOL, the most obvious savings have been on housing costs but it’s also just so much easier to not spend money here. We always intended to use public school, but I can see how we might have gotten caught up in the private school arms race in a different kind of place. Our current city has no secular private schools and the Christian private schools are academically weaker than the public schools, so the only people who use private school due so for religious reasons. Country clubs are not a thing. I know almost nobody with designer clothes or cars. People are less intense about kids activities and we know many people like us who prefer to have their kids on the rec sport track and avoid travel ball. There isn’t as much academic pressure on kids because the state universities are solid but not that competitive to get into, and I’ve never heard of anyone hiring private tutors (except for a kid who was failing a class) or college counselors.
Why the Bay Area is different – look at this ordinary home in Palo Alto in a nice area (it’s all nice) but not one of the top ones. https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/660-Palo-Alto-Ave-Palo-Alto-CA-94301/19494489_zpid/
I know people who spent $6M on a house in the south bay and I think it’s worth more like $7-8M now. It’s a very nice, large house, but not like a mansion or an estate or anything.
The Bay Area is a different beast. I don’t even think NYC compares.
Right – on the east coast, you can still get an estate for $3m. Here, you get a 3-bedroom.
I think that NYC/Manhattan is comparable to the Bay Area, but I agree that the suburbs around NYC are definitely cheaper housing wise. Look up a $3 million apartment in a nice area of Manhattan. It will be smaller and less updated than the Palo Alto home the previous poster linked.
Oh yea to be clear I agree that NYC itself especially Manhattan is more expensive than many parts of the Bay Area – but the difference is that NYC has more affordable suburbs in reasonable commuting distance and the Bay Area doesn’t. There’s not really such a thing as a suburb in the Bay Area. The whole area is a densely populated mess.
What’s everyone’s new years resolution? Apologies if this has been discussed, I haven’t be on here for a few weeks.
I want to be an author completist (Laurie Colwin and Dorothy Dunnett), get all my photos printed and in albums, sell my house and move with my marriage, child, and sanity intact, and hit the ground running in finding community in my new abode (actionable items, host 12 casual hangs and find a new volunteer gig).
As a family, we have a goal for a 2x a month long walk or family cycle ride, watching all the Studio Ghibli movies, and playing through all our board games.
Laurie Colwin fan here! I started reading her in the mid-90s, shortly after she died. I re-read A Big Storm Knocked it Over once in a while, and I am not a big re-reader. Good goal!
I just finished this, and so good. She captures the complexity of married love so, so well.
Mine is to be able to say “I haven’t been on here for a few weeks” and have that be true.
Same. This place isn’t good for me but it’s exhibit a for phone addiction during moments of boredom.
I find I’m here so much now that social media has been infiltrated by AI bots, it’s the only place where I don’t immediately ping chat GPTs style.
Same. I think most of you are probably humans, at least outside of I/P threads.
I/P? I can only think of intellectual property and that doesn’t make sense.
lol. I love this site! It’s clothing and fashion, current news and opinions, random life advice and tips, relationship drama, straight up drama. It’s such a fun and unique place!
I’ve gotten some great pointers on this site. Like where to order dahlia tubers haha.
I love it too and have for like 15 years. I have learned a lot, probably more than I have offered in return. I skip a lot of threads for various reasons, but consistently enjoy a lot of content. Hence why I keep coming back several times per day!
I really want a digital detox and I also want to do one thing at a time. I’m fairly convinced that multitasking in all of its forms is causing a lot of of my anxiety and stress.
I’m trying something new each week. An author I haven’t read, a food I haven’t eaten, music I don’t usually listen to. It’s pushing me out of my comfort zone a bit more.
I like this. It’s expansive, rather than NEW YEAR NEW ME. (Which, at my age, have realized is just BS.)
-make friends, say “yes” to doing things
-start exercising again
-eat more veggies
-stay clear of workplace drama
One of my great uncles, a WW2 pilot and a deeply religious man, had left a message for his pastor to relay at his funeral. The message from my great uncle was this: Be present and say yes.
Dry January + taking care my health, I am 45 so need to get the colonoscopy, and I recently got told I need breast MRI + mammo on a 6 month rotating schedule due to bad family history. I am terrified of these things but I am going to let go and just do it. I have an appt with a new primary care to coordinate some of this at end of Jan and I already am nervous.
For context, this isn’t really garden variety health anxiety. Both my parents died awful traumatic cancer deaths, late diagnosed, and my only sibling is a cancer survivor. Yes, I’ve been to therapists about this.
I did already check off getting a dermatologist visit done to do a skin cancer check (hadn’t been in 5 years, all was well) so go me on that.
I don’t know if this will help you reframe the additional scans but there are some arguments to be made that the mammo/MRI rotation would also help women with dense breasts.
yes this is the gold standard of care for early detection of breast cancer and should be reassuring!
My main goal is to spend less time on my phone– its embarrassingly hard so far. Also learning Spanish and reading more as replacement activities for scrolling.
This is my goal too- I usually carry a book with me but I’m trying to be more intentional about actually opening it if I have down time rather than just having an extra weight in my bag. And reading, even just a few pages, before bed instead of scrolling. It’s highlighted to me that my attention span has really disappeared and I need to actively work to regain it.
Santa gave our family a Brick. It has been really effective at reducing screen time for me (too much time on Instagram) and my junior in high school (addicted to Tik Tok). There’s no subscription fee and multiple phones can use the same Brick. Highly recommend!
What is this?
Do the things that build resilience: sleep, healthy food, journaling, meditation. I can’t exercise because of a medical thing and need to emphasize everything else that brings calm.
I’m resolving to stop driving angry or aggressively. Slowly teaching myself patience and the art of letting it go! It’s a work in progress…
That is a great resolution! The life you save could be your own!!
Thanks for bringing this up. I am going to work on this too. Good luck!
Focus on my nutrition as my husband and I start TTC
Cut down on my screen time
He should focus on his nutrition too. It affects sperm quality. This area of research is understudied but for all our attention on women drinking during pregnancy, it’s now known that men can cause FAS.
I’m aware of that and so is he, but this was about *my* new year’s resolution….
LH strips were very helpful for me in conceiving. Probably would have had a baby years earlier if I used those right off the bat. I think those will be more helpful than nutrition, imho
I’m working on adding several categories of things once per month: try one new recipe, read two books, get one fun coffee drink rather than my usual drip, and meet one friend for dinner each month. I’m writing them down as I do them.
One pull up. Got pretty close last year, but still not there.
lose 25lbs, cut back on drinking. They are related goals. I’m already down 3lbs since the end of December by tracking what I’m eating and drinking more water and less wine. 25lbs is harder than it used to be now that I’m in my 40s but it really puts me back at my healthy weight from a few years ago. I’m carrying around a lot more padding these days ;).
Anyone want to talk Heated Rivalry? I’m obsessed and feel like a teenage girl again!
I’ve only watched the first two episodes, but I’m hooked and immediately downloaded the first two books of the series! I read the first one and just started the second, which is what the show is based on.
I love when Canadian TV gets international attention
I joined the bandwagon after the first two episodes dropped. I’m still at the cottage.
I am ashamed to admit how many times I’ve rewatched the cottage episode…
I’m not ashamed. I think that the show was incredibly well done as an adaptation of the books. Quite frankly, one of the best book adaptations that I’ve seen. It follows the books so well and the changes do not feel like they are done in any unnecessary ways. Connor Storrie and Hudson Williams were phenomenal actors, and I hope that they get as much work as they want in the future. And finally, it was a HEA! There was angst and longing, but at the end of the last episode, it was joyful and optimistic. There’s too little of that in so many forms of entertainment.
Yes to the joyful and optimistic. I am so tired of depressing shows and movies. Even things that should be fun and escapist have become depressing. (I mean they killed off James Bond, Tony Stark, and half of the OG Star Wars people.) Having something follow the tropes of the traditional romance novel is really nice.
Yeah, I love things that are dark and complicated and sad but sometimes you just need something sweet! For reference, my favorite stuff from last year (besides Heated Rivalry) includes: Sinners, A House of Dynamite, One Battle After Another, Andor, The Pacific, and Band of Brothers. All sad and/or scary.
I am consumed by it!!
Binged it last week, watched parts multiple times and then downloaded the whole book series and read 4 of them. I’m cooking off it, but it was a very enjoyable obsession over the holidays.
It’s so sweet and fluffy and clever. I adore it. It reminds me a bit of stuff like Queer as Folk (both versions got angsty and overwrought after a while) but the pro hockey setting is different and fun. A feminist journalist I really like made an excellent point about why it’s so appealing (to me anyway): the protagonists are essentially equals so all of the gendered expectations of a straight relationship just don’t exist in the Loon-iverse.
Also I love Shane’s mom. I’d be a great momager and I love to watch her work!
Related: the Bromance Book Club series. Kind of fluffy romance novels from the men’s perspective. I’ve all five now, and I enjoyed the men’s stories much more than the women’s (they give both sides of the relationship).
Anyone here get lash lifts and can tell me about their experience with it? My lashes no longer hold a curl with a regular curler + mascara (they did for the past 20 years!) and I find that I look way more tired as a result.
If anyone has recommendations for a place in lower manhattan or downtown Brooklyn, I would be interested as well.
This is reminding me to post a psa. I had gotten lash lifts for a while and loved them but ended up having a bad reaction to the solution onetime and it freaked me out about having it that close to my eyes. After trying lots of different things I saw Clio Kill lash mascara at Costco and I love it. I use my curler and put this on and it legit holds a strong curl all day. I have never had that happen with all the other mascaras I’ve tried. I remove it with target version of neutragena make up remover. Good luck though – the lifts are great!!
Depends on your lashes. Mine are blonde and it does nothing for me but I don’t curl them either. Biggest bang for the buck is extensions but those can also weaken your lashes but not as much as a lash lift – that destroyed mine. I’m team mascara and liner every day, extensions for events.
Going to Vegas with two friends. It’s our first kid-free getaway ever together. I’m in charge of booking the hotel. Is it wrong for me to book an upgraded hotel thats a bit beyond the budget we discussed (think Waldorf/Bellagio vs something others..) and just pay the different without telling them? I don’t want it to be a thing. I make considerably more money than both. I could lie and say I caught it on a discount (the incremental between the two hotels is like $150 PP so I’d be covering an extra $300 which I’m happy to do and is feasible i just caught that kind of savings on a down day).
How would you handle?
I would just be honest. “Hey, I feel like being splurging so I’m treating us to the Bellagio!”
This would be the best way to handle it.
I have been in your shoes (with my sister) and I just tell her the amount she owes and do not get into how much the totals are.
Yep, I’ve done this with a friend too (concert tickets).
Honestly, I’d tell a white and say you used points to upgrade the room.
Somehow spending “points” is way more palpable than spending money when treating people. It’s gentler.
We do this all the time with my BIL, we buy him flights to visit family with “points”.
+1 «points» all the way
(1) Tell them their share, and leave it at that. (2) I’d get one of the rooms with a big balcony overlooking the Bellagio fountain at Cosmo over doing Waldorf or Bellagio. Cosmo rooms are quiet and the hotel is more compact than Bellagio and more Vegas feel than Waldorf (which is a gorgeous hotel).
Oh thank you. I’ve stayed at Aria for work conferences several times and that’s currently what they want. For this reason It just doesn’t feel special at all. They want it bc of the price point relative to perceived quality. Maybe cosmo with the balcony is the answer!
real question. there’s a lot of talk on instagam and on this board about quality of clothes and classics and fast fashion. Putting aside that I couldn’t fit into something I bought 10 years ago even if i wanted to, does anyone else find that “better” clothes don’t particularly hold up better than cheaper basics? like i agree that quince cashmere isn’t great but neither is j crews or vince….
Yeah I feel similarly. I’m not in a position to buy designer clothing but I haven’t found the nicer mall brands to be any better than the cheap mall brands. For me, avoiding fast fashion is more about avoiding churning my wardrobe. I almost never buy trendy items and try to buy staples I expect to last me for a few years. In general my goal is basically to spend as little money on clothing as possible. It’s just not something I care about or how I want to spend my money.
Yeah, this is becoming my approach. Even though my body is forever fluctuating to an extent, I’m just not super interested in trying a ton of different trends or silhouettes anymore. At this point in my life, I pretty much know what’s going to work for me and what I feel comfortable in. I try to get as much mileage as I can out of the pieces I have, wherever they’re from. I will say that there are certain fast fashion brands that I have sworn off because those make up the majority of my donate pile.
It kinda depends on your style and your willingness/ability to modify clothes. I like looser shirts, so mine have always fit (save for months 7+ of pregnancy) but pants are a completely different story. I feel like my pants never fit unless they’re yoga pants or similar. Skirts are very forgiving and easy to tailor, so I keep mine until the fabric literally wears holes.
I agree that it’s hit or miss. Sometimes a cheap piece will end up being a workhorse for years, while something expensive falls apart after a season or two. That said, I’m avoiding fast fashion now for environmental/labor reasons.
op here: right, i agree that the concern with fast fashion is the feeling that you can just buy a ton of new stuff all the time because it’s so cheap. But white tshirts or gym clothes are what they are whether you buy them at kohls or splendid.
I actually think gym clothes are the exception to this. Better fabrics reduce chafing and wick sweat better, and they are often more available at higher price points. But price is not a perfect proxy for this, because, like, Alo stuff is not designed to actually be worked out in but is insanely expensive. And even at Lulu, there are options that prioritize function and options that prioritize fashion. But Lulu Fast and Frees are simply better running tights than the Old Navy running tights, and anyone telling you differently has remarkably resilient skin and sweat glands.
I agree with you. Cheap workout clothes feel cheap and terrible, to me at least. I pony up for Athleta and LLL, and they last forever.
Dedicated athlete and I agree on workout clothes. Cheap stuff chafes. The sports bras don’t last as long, chafe, don’t wick sweat as well, or don’t do a good job of locking things down without compressing my rib cage.
They used to last forever. My recent Athleta leggings are very different than the ones I purchased a year ago. I haven’t bought any Lululemons recently because I liked the Swift Speed and I think they discontinued it.
Better isn’t about name brand it’s about materials and construction quality. I do find that flat felled or French seams do hold up much better than serged ones. Buying quality means examining the garment in person usually.
Yes- it’s always interesting to me that the consignment shop will take J Crew but not Cat and Jack, when the quality is EXACTLY the same. I know you’re paying for a label but I’ve been so disappointed in the quality of the J Crew kids clothes, even when I hang dry.
To be fair to J. Crew, I think Cat & Jack is really good quality for the price. That’s my go-to brand for shopping for my kids.
I think it’s more about materials than brands. I agree we all overbuy, myself included, but I don’t buy 100 tops from Amazon just to say I have 100 tops. I think that’s a true criticism of fast fashion and the labor issues. Otherwise, I agree that with the appropriate care my outlet or mall clothes have held up as well.
It depends on the item and fabric composition, but generally yes I’ve found the slightly more expensive item will last longer. For example, acrylic sweaters from Abercrombie vs wool blend sweaters from Sezane, yoga pants from Aerie vs Lululemon. In these categories the more expensive item actually does last me years vs months.
On the other hand, I have 100% cotton items from Uniqlo and Quince that have held up beautifully!
I’m sure designer stuff is nice but I’m not buying that because I can’t afford it lol.
The difference between the brands you listed is marketing not quality.
I think the key is to ask people where they have found to be better quality for a specific category of good. For example, it’s relatively easy to find good quality cotton woven blouses, but hard to find sweaters.
I haven’t really bought new clothes for a couple of years, now. Socks, yes, but no real clothes.
My previous habit would be to check my preferred brands each season and get things that fit my body shape and colours.
After 2+ years buying vintage and second hand only, going into a new clothes’ shop is … horrible. The quality of the fabrics is so bad. It’s so bad. So bad.
I’m peri and will need new clothes eventually. But they won’t be NEW new. It’s so bad. The stores are so plasticky that I feel … alienated.
I think those are very cheap vs pretty cheap. The long wearing clothes I own are/were high end eg cashmere from Scotland, shoes made in Spain with heels that can be replaced, coats with actual camel hair etc etc. I see the problem as being that the prices are ridiculously high now for that level of quality, but also my salary and net worth hasn’t kept pace with the gazillionaires who can afford this stuff.
Jcrew, quince, Vince et al are the same quality.
When I buy a sweater basic like a v neck in black I buy John smedley when I’m in the UK or a place like Brora if I want cashmere. There are some excellent boutiques in Scotland with phenomenal cashmere. My uncle passed in the early 90s. I’m still wearing his Gieves and Hawkes cashmere sweater. It was purchased in the early 80s. It was expensive but it’s probably my cheapest item on a cost per wear basis.
I’m interested in buying a used car. I found a 2025 EV with 1,700 miles. The dealer has certified this car. I don’t understand the benefit of certifying when there is still the original warranty. Am I missing something? Is this just marketing to inflate the price when the car is practically new?
Depends on the dealership, but because I bought mine certified pre-owned, I qualified for a better and cheaper warranty product than I would’ve been able to purchase without the certification. Whether that’s worth it to you probably depends on your own preferences.
i am 50 and wake up like clockwork at 3 in the morning and am pretty awake for awhile. I have seen some stuff online that suggests eating a protein based snack before bed. Has anyone tried this and found it to help? I’m not in a big rush to add a snack into my routine (don’t need the calories) but would try if real people found it helped. if you do, what do you eat? the thought of cleaning my kitchen after dinner and then making something that involves pots or pans is not appealing.
Try a protein bar for a couple nights and see if it makes a difference.
I would try something easy and previously prepared to begin with. Do you like rounds of cucumber with cream cheese and smoked salmon? How about deviled eggs? Plain full fat Greek yogurt? I don’t think you’ll gain weight from a small amount of those. I wouldn’t eat immediately before bed (lying down with food in the stomach isn’t optimal), but a little while before bed.
You’re just guessing that it’s blood sugar though. It could be something else entirely (e.g. histamine, in which case taking a Zyrtec before bed may do more). But if protein helps, that gives you something to discuss w/your doctor.
Fairlife shake before bed. Cheap, easy to try, easy to digest unless you have dairy issues.
Fairlife is a pretty icky company if that’s something OP is concerned about.
Not everyone has dairy intolerance.
I always see peanut butter mentioned for this, and that involves just a spoon.
This is where the old “a glass of warm milk before bed” thing comes in. Why not just drink a glass of milk? I prefer cold to warm, but you could even add a bit of cocoa powder if you like.
I have found that having a glass of whole milk is the perfect protein based snack before bed that helps me sleep. If you can have dairy.
At the age of 50, you will regret that glass of milk, which can cause you to wake up to pee once or twice as you approach menopause. The drop in estrogen causes urinary changes as well.
Eh it varies. I’m 49 and never wake up to pee even if I drink before bed.
Just wait.
Thanks for the warning but I am 60.
I think milk is too much sugar for experimenting on whether a 3 am wake up is from low sugar.
This is why god invented cheese and crackers
This is not a recommendation from sleep doctors for this problem. Waking up at 3am is the classic stress/anxiety related situation. I keep a pad by the bed and write down anything I am worrying about. It helps. Doing a body scan or counting breaths backwards from 25 is my next step, or I turn on a podcast on a timer.
Do you have a good GYN who specializes in menopause? Sleep changes like yours commonly get worse as you approach menopause. Mine did.
Nuts/peanut butter or a hard boiled egg. But adding addition calories before bed at the age of 50 is also a slippery slope.
I agree with this. Eating a calorie dense snack right before bed is not something I would do at my age (mid-40s).
It sometimes is? Waking at 3AM wasn’t anxiety/stress for me, and I saw a sleep doctor (neurologist) over it. It can be alcohol, caffeine, blood sugar, histamine dumping, or sleep apnea, there’s a reason we see doctors for this kind of thing. But since sleep hygiene is easy to experiment with, I understand why OP would consider just giving it a try.
Primary care can work up blood sugar issues too.
yes, we know your history
I’m 42 and when this happened to me I started exercising more. For me, that meant walking the dog for a lot longer (3 miles/day vs 1 mile). I was more tired and slept through the wake-up. maybe try something like that in combo with protein?
For me, magnesium glycinate fixes this.
Keeping my blood sugar balanced and working out more regularly helped my sleep a lot! Also, try keeping your phone in another room, so when you wake up too early, you just relax instead of getting activated.
Has anyone ever been to Lake Geneva, Wisconsin? Any ideas on where to stay or best things to do?
Thanks!
I’ve been. It’s… fine? It’s not a place I would recommend if you have to drive more than a couple of hours to reach it but it’s a decent side trip from Chicago/Milwaukee/Madison if you live in or will be visiting one of those cities. The Grand Geneva is considered the nicest resort.
Where are you coming from? I’m in Chicago so have been several times and it’s a popular “lake house” destination for people in the area. It’s a nice place to visit for a weekend – cute boutique shopping, decent restaurants, some nice sandy beaches. Not a ton to do there, though, so I wouldn’t travel from outside of the midwest to visit.
DH and I stayed at Seven Oaks. It was great. Golf, shopping, good food.
My family loves it.
If you’re looking for a nice resort, go to the Grand Geneva. If you’re bringing kids, go to the Abbey at the other end of the lake.
As a family with young kids, it’s great: skiing, sledding, ice skating in the winter. In the summer, we go to the beach, kayak, go on boat tours, swim, swim more, play lawn games, feed animals at the wild animal safari, roast s’mores over the bonfire, eat our meals overlooking the lake. Not sure if that’s what you’re looking for. My family is all about that, so, again, we love it.
I attended a judicial conference at the former Playboy resort. I definitely do not recommend that resort, and probably wouldn’t bother with Lake Geneva as a vacation destination unless it’s a very close weekend getaway for you. There isn’t much to do.
They have a couple of boat tours (and one has a stop at an island where there is a historic house tour). It was interesting and a fun way to spend a few hours. You can also walk all the way around the lake on a paved path. I agree that it’s not Mackinaw Island but it is cute for a day or two!
Thanks, everyone. We are in a neighboring state and just looking for a place to get away and get outside for a long weekend. Walking around the lake and eating outside overlooking the lake sounds perfect!
I’m late to this thread, so I don’t know if you’ll see this, but I highly recommend walking on the path that takes you all the way around the lake. It will take you a full day, and you need to be in relatively decent shape because the full loop is 23 miles! When we do it, we stopped for lunch in Fontana. You will need water, but it’s such a cool experience because the land abutting the lake is public, and yet you’re sort of walking through people‘s yards! Lake Geneva is adorable, it’s about an hour from me and I think it’s a great place for a weekend getaway. You should definitely stay closer into town than far out. I have a friend who owns an Airbnb there called the cozy cardinal, and it’s adorable, highly recommend.
Thanks!
Got off birth control because I’m ttc and the PMS mood swings are killing me. I feel like a teenager again except instead of angst-ing at my parents, I vent at my husband. Tips on maintaining emotional stability?
I always have the same advice here; look up Lara Briden and “Period Repair Manual.” Think about PMS vs. PMDD too.
Hard exercise.
I am off BC after having my second kid and having the same issue. My OB recommended a supplement. I don’t know what is safe to take TTC, but I would talk to your OB– this is a common issue.
Perhaps you are raging at your husband because of the stress and work of the second kid, in addition to hormonal swings. I know the time after adding our second child was a time of greater conflict in my marriage.
There is definitely some of that, but I was also having crazy mood swings the day before and day my period started. One month I spent the entire day my period started crying for totally irrational things that normally would not have set me off– that is when I saw my OB. Like stress definitely makes the mood swings worse… but I have two kids + a job, so Idk when I won’t have some level of stress.
Attorneys, can you talk to me about the slope from age-related cognitive impairment to lack of capacity? I have a POA for an elderly family member (85) who lives in assisted living and does not use a smart phone. Willing to leave home for needed medical appointments only. He wants me to handle his finances for him, but I am having a hard time getting any financial institution (mostly mutual funds, but some annuity providers) to deal with me. They want him to go out and get various medallion guarantees or be on the phone for calls or get a million pieces of paper notarized. This angers him to the point where he shuts down and refuses to engage and I see his point: he has already authorized this once with the POA he had drafted a signed a few years ago when he was more able to do things. WWYD? There is an IRA he inherited that seems to have some compliance issues with and I just feel stuck at trying to help. Otherwise, his accountant and I have been doing OK with getting his taxes done, etc.
I can’t comment on specifics but I will say that we had a lot of trouble in the state of Colorado when we had power of attorney and yet banks insisted that we also needed their cumbersome forms even though legally I don’t believe they had the right to do that.
Honestly not worth fighting the banks on this. You are right but you wont win.
Spend a couple days figuring out what you need for all of the banking institutions, fill out all of the forms you need (with help of accountant if necessary) and then schedule one painful afternoon where you sit with a notary and sign all of the papers at once.
If needed, schedule out one in person meeting with a bank a week until they are all done.
Absolutely worth doing now before there is an emergency
+1. Banks can be very annoying in this regard!
So, you are right, but larger banks are notoriously difficult to deal with on this issue. I would actually suggest trying to find someone local that does eldercare assistance to help with this– many eldercare attorneys have social workers in their office to help with paperwork like this.
I recently dealt with a similar situation and hired a “traveling” notary to come to the house and put their seal on several different forms. It was astonishingly reasonable, but it’s not easily accomplished unless you are in the same area as your family member.
Yes traveling notary is the way to go
I am trying to gauge how/if DH and I should change our spending and saving habits. Is there a calculator out there to sort of put in numbers and see how we shape up for retirement, etc? The calculators I’ve seen are pretty basic.
We are in our early 40s with 3 kids, assuming they all go, youngest will graduate college ~2040. Our HHI has varied a lot over the years but has recently been pretty steady at about 325-350k. We have a net worth currently of just over 3.5M with about $450k in non-retirement investments, $150k in cash (about $50k of which will make its way into retirement or mutual funds in the next 6 months), $600k in home equity, $250k in 529s, and most of the rest (~$2M) in retirement, about 15% of which is Roth (we have a few other assets in there, like vehicles, but they are worth <$50k).
What I can't tell is if we are in good enough shape that we can sort of scale back a bit on retirement, if we need to divert that to college savings, or if we can just say f*ck it and go on a big fun vacation. Or maybe all of the above?
We would like to be in a position to semi-retire once the kids are in college, which would mean probably we have a joint income of like (today's dollars) $100k and we supplement that with some savings, eventually sell the big house and downsize, then more fully retire once we hit our mid 60s.
Other considerations: we will likely inherit a fair amount of money from one side of the family, but we don't really know how much, or when, and we don't want to plan on it. We are planning to bankroll the kids' college with whatever isn't in the 529 unless the inheritance pays for it, in which case we will buy a family vacation home instead.
This is probably a lot for people to answer here (bc a real answer would take work). You should probably either try a retirement calculator, boggleheads forums (where tons of people ask questions like this), or just model it out with a spreadsheet. Good luck!
+1
Post on Bogleheads for the specific advice that will help and reassure you.
But yes, you are doing great and can make adjustments. Well done.
You’re rich. You have all your needs met. It’s up to you to prioritize your wants. Strangers on the internet can’t really do that.
https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-simple-math-behind-early-retirement/
This is very similar to my family and financial situation last year. Our f*ck it was my husband quitting his government job as part of the DOGE purge and trying to start a business, which is much more expensive than a big fun vacation. Now our HHI is more like mid-200s minus startup costs, and our cash has taken a hit, but I am not worried we’ll end up homeless.
Definitely find a financial planner to run some models for you, it will cost $a few k but be well worth it to have a clear financial map toward your goals.
We were you about 15 years ago and got the kids through college but then one went to medical school and one got married and we decided that absent a real estate crash we will need to help all three with a down payment (plus two more weddings to fund because we cannot play favorites) and all the sudden it was good that we didn’t say f*ck it and we kept work. That said, a) no kid is entitled to grad school, a wedding or a down payment and b) YMMW. Just pointing out that all the big expenses do not necessarily end at college graduation. Times are tough out there for the younguns.
We are in a similar position to you, income and home equity wise. Our retirement savings are less but we will have healthy pensions. I’ve just started to wonder whether we are somewhat overindexing on retirement at the expense of life today — we are very frugal save for one $5K vacation a year. I think this year we are just going to say F-it and go on a longer, more lavish vacation. Maybe we won’t do that every year, but I lost a parent when they were 52 so I feel acutely aware of the passing of time and want to be sure to do things with my kids while I’m here and can still enjoy them. What good is all the money if you don’t use it for what you want?
I am going to Chicago in February, get off the plane approx 9am and have to be back at O’Hare approx 4:15 pm. I will have about 6 hours to sightsee, eat, shop, and cant move as fast or walk as long as I used to due to Stage 4. Therefore, does anyone have recommendations as to 2-3 places I could see and restaurants you love that are all in walking proximity of each other that I can get to by taking L-Train to and from O’Hare? And, I have not flown since before 9/11, and I do know about 3 oz bottles in qt ziplock, no tweezers/nail clippers but what else should I know for a day trip so I dont get delayed by TSA? 3d Q: they upgraded me to first class which I have never flown in so what are expectations-dont want to be a rube! Thanks!!