In case we don’t give you enough great advice on how to look fabulousssssssss on a frugal budget check out this NYT article!

Thanks for the image National Post. Image by Rachel Ann Lindsay.

You may be surprised to know that sometimes liquidators are actually  hired when a company is going out of business. We’ve been to some liquidation “sales” in the recent months that were atrocious. It’s possible that they even marked up their prices. Why do such a thing? Because they’re looking for suckers! But Smartypanties will not be had! Know the average price of something you’re going to purchase at a liquidation sale before your purchase. Often times customers are lured into a purchase believing they’re saving lots of money (aka me at sample sales, the early years of course) when they’re being ripped off in reality.

Also, if you do find a good deal make sure you like what’s coming home with ya! Once the stores close their doors there won’t be anywhere to return your buyer’s remorseful item to and you’re stuck with it, making your “bargain” a waste of money that’ll  leave you wishing you paid full price for something you really wanted!

Another good thing to know: not all sales are equal! I’ve noticed around town that sometimes different chain stores offer differing sales prices. So don’t abandon a sale figuring you’ll hit the location near your office and expect the same price. In the same vein don’t make a big purchase without checking around. A pain, yes I know, but if you’re strapped for cash it may be your savior!

So lovelies, as you know, recently I made the big move into an apartment with BF. Here are some tips I have for making your own move go smoothly…

Finding the Right Apartment

If you’re trying to get an apartment in Manhattan you need to know that you’ve got to be ready to pounce. This means you have to get everything in order before you even go look at apartments. Typically you need a picture i.d., tax records for the past 2 years, proof that you have a bank account, so something like statements. Different buildings may require more things I can’t remember what else ours required but definitely those things. You also should be ready to write a check for at least the application fee on scene. If you don’t have this stuff, someone else will. Be prepared and be prepared to stalk the leasing office until your apartment goes through. Also you’ll most likely need 1 month’s rent ready soon after your application is approved as well as at least 1 month’s rent for a security deposit.

Once you’ve been approved you should try to negotiate. In this market lots of apartments are available and you can most likely knock at least $100 off the monthly rent.

PS-you don’t need to use a broker. There are plenty of apartments in rental buildings that you can walk in yourself. If you do this make sure you ask for a price reduction since they’d definitely be paying the broker a hefty fee. Craigslist also has some gems, you just have to dig.

The Move

If you have heavy furniture, hire movers if you have the money. It’s worth it. BF moved himself with a UHAUL with friends but even they would have had a hard time moving my couch complete with sofa sleeper and gigantic mirror and I didn’t want any of it to get damaged. I hired Flat Rate Movers. Here’s their deal, when you set up the move you have to give them a list of every piece you’re moving: TVs, Mirrors, rugs, furniture, boxes, you name it. Each piece you add of course hikes up the price. Ask them though what they charge for certain pieces because if you can move some of your stuff on your own it might be worth it. For example BF had a UHAUL so I gave him some of my stuff that we could lift in order to reduce the stuff my movers had to take and therefore lowered my price, which came out to be about $500. Now, you can go to Craigslist and hire movers there but they’re probably not insured and that scared me a bit. Included in Flat Rate’s price was up to $5000 worth of your stuff (there is a deductible though). All I know is my move went off without a hitch (minus the movers getting blocked in my alley by a police car but of course that wasn’t their fault). The movers arrived On Time and ready to work. They didn’t break one thing and they were very fast.

Visit FlatRate.com for more details

Where I DO NOT think you should scrimp and save is on tips. These guys are working hard to move your stuff and even though you’re paying a big company big bucks, they’re probably not seeing much of it. I didn’t know what I should tip them so I asked around and the consensus seemed to be at about $40-$50 per person who is moving your stuff. Trust me, they’ll be very grateful, and really, it’s well deserved.

Furniture

We tried to keep any furniture we could from my last place, this included a Jennifer Convertibles couch (complete with bed). This was a great investment. Not only have I had the couch for 3 years but at Jennifer Convertibles you can purchase something called Stain Protection. This means if you spill on it and can’t get it out they’ll come clean it for free and if they can’t get it out they’ll give you a new couch! Definitely worth whatever we paid for it. We may have to test this out since we just found a spot on it.

Target has decent furniture. Beware though you need to put everything together. How much is your time worth? Some of the pieces are upwards of $350. At that point you may be happier going to a furniture store and purchasing a piece that’ll come already assembled. Also realize that Target furniture isn’t always the best quality often you get what you pay for. If you do get it (we ordered our TV stand) be careful when assembling it. Make sure that you put it on towels and don’t scratch it by moving it on wood floors.

Crate and Barrel and West Elm are much cheaper than you’d think and have great stuff. The Door Store has some good furniture too. We ordered our coffee table from there. It comes assembled and is real wood. For us, we’re trying to make some small investments so that the next time we move we won’t want to just toss all our furniture.

The Relationship

Try to be patient with your new roommate, be it a friend or boyfriend. Keep telling yourself everything takes time and take it step by step, together.

Get ready…Pictures to follow once I’ve got everything together!

So we may not know much, but we are quite good at stretching the dolla and still managing to look pretty decent. We mentioned in an earlier post how we had to talk ourselves down from purchasing the most gorgeous $500 Nicole Miller gown. And we’re so happy we did! (We’ll get it on Sale later–muah-ha-ha-haaaaaa)

(PS before we go on we’re going to try to post more pics of ourselves since we’ve been getting emails asking to see exactly what we’re talking about –we’re not just incredibly obsessed with ourselves…)

Here are Smartypanties tips to looking and feeling great at formal events without going broke:

1. Purchase investment pieces. I know not all of you are in a position to be able to invest in timeless pieces like Chanel but I think it’s worth saving up and getting a few special pieces that will be able to carry you through the years. All my bags like Gucci, Balenciaga and Chanel are bags I will have forever. My Black Balenciaga still rounds up compliments  whenever she comes out. Pieces like that make you feel special no matter what you wear. Even when I wear jean shorts and sandals I instantly feel pulled together when I pair my outfit with an expensive bag. Shallow (and perhaps sad) but true. And even though I spent a pretty penny on it, it’s cost per wear! nearly 4 years later, her and I are still in love.  Same goes for jewelry. We splurged and bought a giant onyx/diamond David Yurman cocktail ring and we wear it every single day!

2. Buy gowns at sample sales or wait till they go on sale even a little. Big ticket items that go on sale even for 20% off equal huge savings. Keep your eye on it online or while window shopping. Once they knock it down even 20% that’ll be a $90 savings! I picked up my Foley & Corinna gown at a sample sale for $250 (from $500).

3. Get a trim the day of the event to leave you feeling fabulous. Any hairstyle will look perfect–even if you just wear it down. We stopped into a cheapie salon downtown by us for ours. It only ran us $26! And they did a great job. I mean anyone (including probably us) can manage a trim sans mistakes. We passed on having our hair blown dry since we like how we do it better ourselves.

4. Add easy trends into your look YOURSELF for a perfect polished look. We chose to Hills our hair up by adding some tiny braids under different layers of our locks and are proud to report we even received a few compliments. However, don’t try anything to complicated otherwise you’ll end up looking like you did DIY, which is very UN-glamorous.

We were very happy how our hair came out–espesh when we pulled it back, the braids fell perfectly! Even at the cheapie salon we went to they wanted $45 to do something like this. Frankly, why pay an idiot to do something you can do yourself? You guys are smartypanties! You think you can’t manage to do anything the girls on the Hills can’t do? C’mon now.

5. Know which products can be picked up from the drug store. We’ve really been digging the nude lipgloss situation. Taking a note from celebs like Gweneth we decided to subdue our lips and play up our eyes with a little purple. You like?

We used Sally Hansen Lip Inflation Extreme in Sheer Bare. It’s hard to tell here (and this is an hour after application and a bellini) but it actually worked! The nude color was just right and so was the price…$8.29. Love this!

6. Wear shoes that won’t ruin your night! Last event we went to our shoes totally rocked! However, we spent half the night looking for a chair to rest our little yams. This time we opted for flat sandals–hey, no one could see our feet anyway and we danced the night away!

Got any better tips? Email us and let us know ‘em!!!

So we just tested out Mrs. Meyer’s laundry products and we’re here to SPRING their praises. This past weekend the BF was away so we decided to SPRING for new, fun, and fresh cleaning products and then stay home and do our laundry. We’re cool, we know.

My social life aside, we tested the Lemon Verbena laundry detergent, the Basil scented dryer sheets and the Geranium scented fabric softener.  The scents are all heavenly. Basil sounds weird, right? But it’s not! It’s glorious! It smells fresh and hardly resembles a bunch of basil from your grocery store. The scents are all light and not overwhelming.  They’re the type of scent that can be breathed in by sniffing the clothes but not so overpowering that it will give your loved ones an allergic reaction.  Laundry Detergent, $14.99 is concentrated enough to do 64 loads! Fabric softener is $7.99 and all ingredients are derived from plant sources and essential oils. 

Then of course we couldn’t stop there. We had to purchase some candles too! We kept one for our apartment and one for the smelly BFs (jk honey). The lavender scent smells fresh and sweet so my Sissy and I kept it for our apt. The Lemon Verbena is a sweet citrus and I think I nailed it on the head when I described it to my sister as “it smells like the white part of the bomb pop tastes.” You know? Those red, white and blue pops you have at the pool in the summer! It smells like that. It’s just a perfect sweet citrus flavor with the perfect amount of SPRING! Did I mention it’s made from vegetable (soy) wax and has a lead-free, metal-free wick? Don’t care about that? How about it burns for 35 hours! Not too shabby for $9.99!

Visit Mrs. Meyers online to see other products! We really think you’ll love them as much as we do! We’re just obsessed with the idea that they’re not much more expensive that your regular drugstore brands, yet they’re better smelling and don’t contain all the harmful ingredients!

Go ahead, get your spring cleaning on!

AMEX PUTS ALL THEIR (CREDIT) CARDS ON THE TABLE

I just read a story here that I found super interesting. As I embark on the adventure (terrifying) and get my very own credit card (no debit for this lawyer no mo!) I had to take a moment’s pause after I read this. American Express is making a pre-emptive strike against those credit card holders who they think will be the ones to default in this rocky economy. The CC giant is offering card-holders $300 prepaid cards (accepted where AMEX is) to pay their balance and cancel their card memberships.  They must be thinking these people who will take advantage of this deal are  the most likely to default on bills down the road. It’s kind of genius–they’ll get their money less $300, even if it means these people will be going into more debt on another credit card to get out of their Amex debt. And so the saga continues, this plan feels like a house of cards…only time will tell what’s in the cards…is that enough creative card expressions for you? If not I have more cards up my sleeve…haha.

Please note the “Platinum and Gold” fonts…

So, we’ve recently booked a trip to Playa Del Carmen with the BF (yay!!) so we’ve been scrimping and saving every penny we have to make it work. And let me just tell you, we think this trip has really helped our lifestyle, here’s why:

• We’ve started eating healthier since every time we picture ourselves in a bathing suit we can practically already see each and every french fry or late night slice of pizza going to our tummy, butt or thighs.
• We’ve cut down our alcohol intake to save cash and calories
• We’ve been working out consistently and hard to make sure we can see our results. We’ve been walking and running in Central Park with the BF even on the weekends.
• We’ve been cooking–this has been saving us a ton of money and a ton of calories too!

So, recessionistas, even though we’ve spent a pretty penny on this vacay we think it’s money well spent. Plus when you have a happy ending to work for it makes not ordering in or shopping our cares away much easier.

We can’t wait to tell everyone about our trip (don’t get too excited though, we don’t leave till mid-March).

Smartypanties think booking a short vacation is worth the money you will spend. There are plenty of luxurious resorts right now with great deals. Our body is already thanking us for avoiding the inevitable winter weight gain we surely would have had if we had not had a sunny getaway to look forward to. (We’ll wait till we’re at our all-inclusive resort to do that)

Looking for a quick, cheap getaway–check out BookMe.com It’s our fave site because they donate a portion of their proceeds to animal charities!!!