Sales Madness

So… although it’s the middle of January and Christmas & New Years Eve are long gone, I’m gonna have to do it.

I’m going to say it, even though its woefully late:

Happy New Year! (#sorrynotsorry!)

So far this year, my blog has taken a back seat even though I have been desperate to get back to it though sadly a few things hindered my good intentions:

• reclaiming the house back from the chaos of Christmas
• backlog of very dull household chores
• photographing and uploading furniture onto eBay
• shopping for replacement furniture
• sifting through toys and collating bin liner after bin liner, full to the brim, for charity (- which have yet to be dropped off I might add), and…
• last but not least, sales.  Bargain-hunting-sales-shopping, of course.

Now, I’ve got to be honest, I haven’t actually made it out to any shops for proper good old sales rummaging.

We were too busy over Christmas, and finally, when the boys went back to school, the house took priority.  And, now, though there are still bargains to be had if you go to actual, real shops… I’ve already done my wee bit of sales shopping online, from the comfort of my sofa and pretty much spent any budget I had allocated to the sales.

When it comes to real-shop shopping, I’ve said it before… there’s not much going on in the way of shops in my small town, and often, the chain stores we do have (I’m thinking M&S and HM here) happen to have all the “crud” instead of any of the great pieces I see online.

So ultimately, I didn’t actually have much of a choice with how I shopped; however, what I will say for going sales shopping in actual proper shops is this: even if something is sold out online, there is still a chance the item will be available in-store.   At this point in the sales, real-shop shopping is probably the best place to bag a bargain – especially now, the very  tail-end of the sales.

If you can be bothered to rummage of course.

So what did I buy?

I’d earmarked a few pieces over the course of Autumn to keep an eye out for in the sales; keeping a list of such items comes in super hand when the sales finally do come around… though I admit, I didn’t bother keeping a list this year which is a dangerous game when it comes to the two dreaded words we bargain-hunters fear most: ‘sold out’.

The things I had in mind were mainly mid-range high street although in reality, its usually the high-end where the biggest savings are. For example, a fellow Instagrammer recently posted a pic of a lovely Gucci dress which was reduced from £3000 down to £900.

OK, most of us still don’t have a spare grand to just splash on an occasional dress, but you have to admit: it’s a fantastic reduction, isn’t it?  Or is it just a sign of the crazy-collosal mark-ups designer charge?!

First item I’d earmarked, was a pair of Donna Ida Rizzo High Top Ankle Skinnies which I had already tried on and so knew I wanted them (see my previous blog post about it);

Now I had wanted these jeans in the grey (or Foggy London to use their proper colour description) and  I think they were originally reduced from £165 down to something like £89, however, I dithered and wasn’t quick enough and so my size sold out.

However, the reason I had procrastinated was I’d spotted that the jeans also came in a lovely dark olive/khaki colour (called Mash) which I really liked the look of.  By the time I decided I *did* want to buy them, there were reduced further to just £49, and with an extra 10% off sale on the day I ordered, I felt pretty chuffed with my bargain:

These Rizzo jeans in Mash are now down to £35, a real bargain, though there are limited sizes available only.  So yes, my bargain wasn’t *the* most bargainous price, but you have to strike whilst the iron is hot in the sales… And any of the Ida jean’s described as ‘ankle’ are a great purchase for us petites as they are just the right length for us!

There are currently some excellent reductions in the Donna Ida Sale – 80% off in fact, so well worth checking out if you have a minute.  I’m seriously thinking about bagging a pair of these Ramona Dungarees:

These Ramona’s are reduced from £195 down to just £39.  I mean… I know they’d be long on me, but that’s because I’m a really short petite-petite.  I reckon if you’re 5’2″ you wouldn’t need to do anything to them at all, and if you’re taller, they they’d be more culotte-pinafore like.  What are you waiting for?

Love them.

Must resist…

Moving onto & Other Stories, it’s bargain central in their sale right now.

I was reminded of a pair of silver metallic boots which I had my eye on by Michelle from My Fashionable 40s after she blogged about them (the ones I’m wearing in the photo above):

Now these are sold out in the silver but are still available in the Black Suede for just £45.

Here I am, sporting my silver beauties which I can confirm, are super comfy and easy to wear with pretty much any and everything:

Since I was placing an order anyway, I decided to throw the dark green Spackle Print Dress in my basket , which I blogged about before (here) as it was half price at £23:

 

Clearly, I’m destined not to have this dress because somewhere between placing my order and the order being prepared for shipment, the dress had sold out.  It is now available in my size, but I’m being cheap and don’t want to pay for postage on it.

Another great clothing staple to bag in the sales is a coat.

I’ve been after a teddy coat for about 20 odd years now, ever since my friend bought a lovely cheap as chips one from New Look many years ago.  My friend is a standard UK size 10 – 12, but she bought the teddy coat in size 8.  Back then, New Look didn’t do size 6s so I had no chance of it fitting me.

This lovely & Other Stories Fuzzy Coat however, fitted all my requirements:

So this was reduced from £165 down to £165 when I ordered it for the first time… (yes, this is where my sales madness kicked in!) but I didn’t want to miss out on it in case it sold out.

When the coat arrived, I knew I was going to love it whilst I was just unwrapping it…

and on throwing it on, I could see it was a tad too big.  So, I put on my chunkiest jumper and then tried it on again…

Now, before you say anything – I didn’t wear this coat “out”… Being the saddo I am, I folded it carefully and took it out in a large bag;  Mr T and I had a test-drive of a new car booked in and so it meant I’d have a photographer with me and wouldn’t need to faff about with a tripod.

Anyway, the husband dutifully obliged with the photography and in a last ditch attempt to try and persuade myself that I was wrong, that I could get away with the fit of this coat, I posted this photo on my Instagram where the vast majority were in the “keep it” camp.

This was music to my ears of course.

However, I couldn’t help but notice the coat had now been reduced to £83, though my size was sold out.

I repackaged the coat back up and decided  to sleep on it and over night, it came back in stock online in my size at the reduced price.

So I re-ordered it at £83 and returned the £116 one.

When my reduced-reduced teddy coat arrived … I didn’t feel the same excitement or anticipation I’d felt originally – I suppose because I knew in my heart of hearts, it was just too roomy across my shoulders/back/chest and that I was just kidding myself:

Apologies for the low quality phone pic, it was the best I could manage.

It was difficult to photograph just how roomy the coat was across my back because every time I raised my arm to hold my phone up, a lot of the excess fabric would get pulled round and so didn’t look so bad.

The deciding factor on returning the coat however came when I tried it on over normal, non-chunky knits.  Sadly, I had to admit defeat and return it.

For a second time!

Yup – proper sales madness.

And finally… the one that go away:

On New Years Eve morning, I checked in on these boots on the Selfridges website – they were reduced from a whopping out of my budget £450 down to £149 and all sizes were available.

Naturally I added them to my basket straight away, heart pounding with excitement… however, my transaction was interrupted by the shrill screams of a four year old, I could hear the older boy crying too so I rushed to their aid… and in the few minutes it took to sort them out with a kiss & cuddle and rub their bumped heads… were just the very same few minutes in which these very boots sold out.  In all sizes.

Disappointed, gutted, annoyed… none of of them can truly cover just how stupid I felt.  It’s true what they say:

I genuinely mourned the “loss” of getting my hands on a bargain pair of these Marant boots – which were still selling for full price (£450) at Harvey Nic’s and the like.  And yes of course I tried phoning immediately to see if there was any stock in any of their stores.  Of course there wasn’t.

The pain of missing out on these boots was real.  Honestly… it really was.

It took me about 10 days or so to post my sad little sob story on Instagram, for moral support (!) … and as ever, with Instagram, there are always #enablers helpful followers!  I was pointed in the direction these very similar Ganni Masha Texas boots by a couple of lovely insta-pals:

So these Ganni boots were reduced from £180 to £108 in this cognac colour and only available in my size.

In black however, the colour I was after, there wasn’t as much of a reduction… however, did manage to get them for the same price as the reduced Marant’s Nowles boots, but… well, I wasn’t 100% sure.  I wanted the ‘hidden internal wedge’ of the Marant’s… and the had laces!

Seriously, how fickle am I?  (Do you really need me to answer that…?!)

Anyway, I ordered the Ganni boots and guess what? I am really, really loving them:

The boots arrived yesterday and I had a good old try on… they are comfy, warm, easy to walk in so I decided to keep them and sprayed them with some leather /suede protector there and then.

I gave them an outing this morning –  perfect for my ’round town’ dog walks, though I can’t say Sylvie’s particularly impressed.  I can always add red laces of my own if I really want to, though I doubt I will every get round to it.

So that’s it – that’s my sales story: my sales madness if you will.

How about you: do you go bonkers in the sale? or keep a cool, clear head and stick to your sales buying strategy?

Or, crazier still – do you steer well clear? Really?? I don’t believe it!

Would love to hear your sales stories & any bargain buys you’ve bought?

Thanks for reading.

B x