The Decider with the Floral Dress On

Now With Extra Polka Dots--Thursday, 3/10/16

Bridgette recommends that we "add a tailored touch to a soft floral" in her blog post on wearing fall florals to work.  My grey floral dress is beyond soft and swishy--it's got a very casual, gathered boho style top that is too low cut in front and back to be appropriate for the workplace without some coverage.  A blazer is a must.

From bridgetteraes.com

This grey blazer from Jones New York feels tailored and professional enough to mitigate the laid-back weekend vibe of the dress.

Grey floral dress (thrifted, Old Navy), $1.67/wear+
Dark grey blazer (JNY), $7.14/wear
Magenta scarf (JCP), $2.40/wear
Black sweater vest (thrifted, Foxcroft), $0.57/wear
Grey polka dot tights
Black mary janes by Hush Puppies, $5.60/wear

Outfit total: $16.38/wear

And a sweater vest + scarf combo provides the needed coverage on the front.

But lest you think I've lost my goofy edge, I've got polka dot tights and librarian shoes in this outfit, too.

In other news...I don't think I ever mentioned that the other aspect of my Sunday a week ago, in addition to the Big Closet Purge, was that Robert and I went to Goodwill in the morning to spend a $100 gift card that he had won by doing an online post-purchase survey.  $100 goes a long way at Goodwill!  

The way the Goodwill stores in our area operate these days is that when you make a donation, you get a 25% off coupon.  They've been doing this for some time now.  But I've noticed more recently that they have increased their prices somewhat.  I can't tell whether they've increased prices enough to fully compensate for the 25% off coupon (it's definitely not more than that) but it does mean that it makes more sense than ever to make a donation when you shop.  So I will NOT be taking the full contents of the Big Closet Purge all at once.  I'll be breaking it into several donations so that I can take advantage of the 25% off deal.

I wasn't at all paying attention to how much I thought my purchases were going to add up to as I was shopping.  And with the 25% off coupon and the 50% off all blue tag items sale going on, it wasn't as though it was easy to keep a rough idea of the amount in mind while not actively trying to monitor it.  And one of the benefits of thrift shopping is that I don't have to worry about how much the total is anyway.  Everything is inexpensive enough, and even when I purchase a bunch at once, it's not an important amount to me.  And with the $100 gift card, well, if it's more than $100, I'll just pay the difference.

So of course it turns out that with the sale and coupon and everything taken into account, the total was $98.47.

I mostly bought things from my shopping list (mostly).  I did very well with finding lightweight short-sleeved tops and a couple spring/summer cardigans in colors I do not already have, which I can best describe as "saturated pastels."  So like light green, light blue, aqua, pink, light purple--not the ones that have a lot of white in them that look very light and pale, but a bit more intensity of color.  I thought it would be easy to find an image via Google of "saturated pastels" but it's not!  This is closest I could find to what I mean.

From etsy.com

I have always really liked these colors.  One of my favorite outfits growing up was a blouse/skirt set my mom sewed for me as an Easter dress.  It had an intense lavender/lilac colored top and a skirt with somewhat broad vertical stripes of a white/ivory and various intense pastels colors.  While I will not be recreating the full awesomeness of that outfit this spring/summer, I do have a nice selection of "saturated pastel" clothes to show you in the coming months.

The most not-on-my-shopping-list purchase was a black knit textured tuxedo jacket.  I have a lot of black jackets, but I wear a lot of black jackets, and this was different enough in shape and fabrication from the ones I have to justify it.

For the record, even though I purchased these items with a gift card, I am still counting them at the price they rang up at for my cost-per-wear calculations.  That seems reasonable given my interest in seeing the value I'm getting out of my purchases.  Putting them all at $0 would make every item look like a fantastic choice--and it wouldn't help me see the purchases in terms of opportunity cost.  I'm doing it this way because I'm the decider!  (Well, I also asked Robert's opinion and he independently suggested listing the items at receipt price.  Even the decider benefits from expert advice.)