It’s all about the shoes

Yesterday something very odd happened to me – I looked down at what I was wearing and realised that all of it was new. I’d bought everything I had on from a proper shop and even paid full price for them. This almost never happens. Normally at least one item I’m wearing, usually more, is from a charity shop, is a pass me down or was on sale. And now that I’ve discovered swishing too it is even more unlikely that I will be wearing new clothes. So how this happened I do not know. Normal service has resumed today and I’m wearing a dress from Dorothy Perkins sale and shoes from Lidl.

As you must know by now I love a bargain and am often quite proud of how little my clothes cost. Ingrid and I have talked about doing posts entitled “an outfit for a tenner” and whenever we discuss this I add up in my head the cost of what I’m currently wearing. It usually comes to less than a tenner, that is, until I get to my shoes. Shoes are the problem for the charity shop shopper. It’s hard to find good shoes in charity shops so they do always bump up the cost of an outfit. It’s possible to spend two pounds on a dress only to spend forty on shoes to go with it.

So, imagine my excitement when I did find an outfit, complete with shoes, for a tenner, and good enough to wear to a wedding no less. I bought some brand new, labels still on, gold Marks & Spencer shoes from Cancer Research for £7. I then found a brown halter neck dress on the market but originally from Debenhams for £3. Ten pounds exactly. So it is possible even with shoes.

While we’re talking shoes, I must just tell you this. Remember my saying that I wore yellow shoes to my job interview? Well, I wore them to work the other day and my boss said “those are the shoes”. When I looked at her blankly she explained that when she was asked why she thought I was right for the job she replied “because of her shoes”. I knew yellow shoes were the way to go!