My boss subscribes to a bunch of magazines, and she has started passing them along to me when she’s done, which is very cool of her and awesome for me. I mean, who doesn’t love free magazines? I particularly enjoy InStyle for some reason, even though it doesn’t even remotely relate to my life. I’m terrible at fashion, and would never wear most of the clothes you see in the magazine. I don’t care about $6,000 purses or $800 shoes. Seriously, a $6,000 purse? Does it double as a vacation home in Nags Head for two weeks each year? Is it a magic purse? Because otherwise, I don’t get it. It’s a purse. There’s no way it could be worth $6,000. And while I love shoes, you have to draw the line somewhere, and my line is somewhere south of $800. No matter how pretty they are.
Most recently she passed along a copy of InStyle Home Decorating (or something like that). And it has some interesting articles about paint and tips on simple ways to spruce up a room. It also has this feature called “Blowout and Budget” where an interior decorator creates two similar looking spaces for vastly different amounts of money. It was cool to see, but once again, InStyle and I are diverging on the area of cost. Their “Blowout” patio cost over $25,000. Yep, that’s more than I spent on my car for patio furniture. The “Budget” came in somewhere over $3,000. I don’t know about you, but to me, that still seems a little excessive for outdoor furniture. I say people who are on a budget aren’t going to spend $700 on wall sconces or $900 for a console table when they already have an umbrella table and two small tables on their patio. But perhaps that’s just me.
Ugh. I think most people feel the way you do. Other magazines also have articles about budget clothes, shoes, etc. And they'll show tiny t-shirts that can be bought for only $150! That's it!! I always wonder who these items are a "steal" for....and I doubt those people would be reading the articles.
No, it's not just you. I agree that our society really pushes the bar on living the life of a celebrity while making the salary of a car salesman. I would be happy with a nice patio table and chair set. Our patio furniture is that hard resin plastic stuff you can buy at Wal-Mart.