Spend $100, Save $25.......

I swear, my husband just has no idea how much money I save him. The newest coupons from the Coldwater Creek store invite you to save $25 if you spend $100. Well, not one to pass up a chance to do my patriotic duty and invest in the southeast Texas economy, off I went to the mall yesterday.

Not only did I save $25 once, but I saved it twice. By the time I looked through all of the racks of the "winter" mark-downs, and the racks of the new items for Spring, I had two piles of clothes, each pile adding up to $100. I asked the cashier if I could use the coupon twice, being that I had $200 worth of items. That request prompted her to ask the manager, who gladly said yes. And why wouldn't she? There I was, standing at the counter wearing a leather jacket, slacks and a sweater-- all from my last trip to Coldwater Creek.

So in my mind, I saved my husband $50 by shopping in that store with their coupon. Plus, most of what I bought was marked down to half of the original prices. I'm sure he wouldn't see it that way, but men's minds don't work the same way as ours do.

I walked around the mall a little bit, looking through Dillard's and Foley's for "the little black dress" that I've been searching for since before Christmas. I found hundreds of black dresses, but nothing that didn't look like I was going to participate in a beauty pageant---- enough beads and sequins on those dresses to choke the proverbial horse.

As I passed by the Nine West store, my eye caught a pretty pair of black satin shoes.... something else that I've been looking for since I tossed out my favorite pair of black satin heels last year. I'd had those satin heels for at least 15 years, and they were just the perfect shoes for my Christmas and New Year's party outfits. I didn't wear them much during the year, but after all those years of holidays, they needed to be replaced. Nine West had the perfect black satin heels yesterday, marked down after the holidays, and now they're tucked away in my closet.

While I was in Nine West, minding my own shoe-business, my eye rested on yet another pair of pretty shoes. Open toe, closed back, less than a three-inch heel.... multi-colored silk in sort of a paisley pattern of green, taupe, gold and brown. Too, too cute, and a perfect "punch of color" shoe for the great jeans I had just bought in Coldwater Creek. As I tried those on, the salesgirl went in the back and came out with the same shoe in a different color and pattern--- blue, brown, ivory and gold on the second pair. Of course, that one was too cute as well.

I told her thank you but no thank you.... one pair of multi-colored shoes was enough, especially since those weren't marked down. But I made the mistake of trying on the blue ones as well, just to see how they looked. Of course, they looked just as great as the first pair, and being that the pattern was totally different, they didn't look like a carbon-copy of the first pair. I put them back in the box and said no thank you.

Silly me. Those shoes sat in that box and just started talking to me. "If you don't buy me now, you'll be driving back here tomorrow, and heaven only knows if I'll still be here." In situations such as those, I always ask myself what my husband's mom would do. "Honey, life is too short to waste time on such trivial decisions... if you're not taking away grocery money or mortgage money, then buy whatever you like." I bought both pairs, plus the black pair that I went into the store for in the first place. Then I made believe I had blinders on and got out of the mall before I had a chance to save my husband some more money.