mrs thrifty

I've been trying, over the course of the last year, to reinvent my style. Previously, I had rocked the whole preppy-but-plain 1990s JCrew look. You know, pink chinos and a white boatneck tshirt. Then I got married, gained a bunch of weight, and had to rock the whole get-my-fat-butt-to-the-gym-so-all-i-wear-are-workout-clothes look. After my weight loss (I'm a proud WW girl) my friends Lindsey Lee and Chelsea had a wee bit of a fashion intervention with me (picture What Not To Wear only not so mean.)

The outcome was fantastic. The two girls purged about 1/2 my clothes, reminding me why they didn't work for my body or new style, filled in the holes is my now bare wardrobe and made a photo book of all the ways I could wear my new items. I felt like a combination of style-moron and celebrity.

And now I'm pregnant. And slowly working my way out of my cute clothes. I want to maintain my new style, but I'm not sure how to work it with the whole quickly-expanding-waistline thing. Every time I've gone shopping this fall (ok, all 2 times) I just seem stuck......well, I can't buy that because it'll only fit for like a minute, and I can't even think about buying this because even though I love it I won't be able to wear it for the next 9 months.

And yesterday it hit me: SHOES. I can keep my style though my pregnancy with cute shoes. I'm gonna rock the whole leggings and tunic top/dress/long shirt thing for as long as I can, and fabulous boots are going to be a necessity. I'm happy to say that my boots from http://www.gojane.com/ are still holding up:

The brown beauties go with just about everything I own and they fit perfectly with my whole attempt to capture the feminine-twist-on-boho look. But I've been on the hunt for some black boots too. I've scoured countless department stores, Ross, TJ Maxx and have been so disappointed.....not so much with the selection, but about finding a boot that I'd love but not cry over the pricetag.

And then I found them:

Zaney, by Steve Madden $89

I was trying desperately to stay under my self-imposed $50 budget, but was having such a hard time. I knew I could find a pair of boot as great as my brown ones if I just looked hard enough (those boots were only $35 including tax and shipping!)

Just as I was starting to justify the $89 price tag, I found the boots at DSW for $59.95! I quickly added them to my online cart and was about to enter my credit card info, when it hit me: internet discount codes! I did a quick search for "dsw coupons" and found a free shipping code and a 30% off code! The grand total for my boots ended up being $45.22!

I think I'll take myself out for a latte to celebrate being under my $50 limit! But, if I make some coffee at home, maybe I can find a fabulous scarf with that remaining $4.78.........