Business are going through layoffs, freelance clients are cutting back on their budgets, and sitting down to balance the checkbook has never been so depressing. Short of outfitting your office walls with Xanax-dispensing pellet guns, is there anything you can do to make your work environment more tolerable?

Well, maybe so. A little extra organizational happiness can’t be a bad thing, right?

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If you read me over at Swistle, you know I have been obsessed with enthusiastic about cloth napkins recently.  I initially tried them because of a feeling of wanting to purchase clearance merchandise no matter what it is environmentalism, but it turns out we LOVE using them.  They’re soft and comfy!  And I don’t iron them, and no one cares!

Well, so now I have to buy more than we need, to vent some of my enthusiasm.  I don’t even know how many I’ve bought so far, but…many.  I could sew clothes for ALL the VonTrapp children out of cloth napkins and still have enough napkins for them to use at dinner.
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If your household is anything like mine, you’re probably doing some cutting back these days, and luxury items seem a little more . . . luxurious than they used to be. As in, boy that necklace sure is pretty but I have other things I need to buy right now, like FOOD.

With budget restraints in mind, it can be hard to justify a high-end purchase, especially if you’re not really sure if it’s worth it. Is that spendy moisturizer really going to “revitalize” your skin, or will a drugstore brand do just as well? Let’s explore a few buzz-worthy purchases:
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Picked your 2009 calendar yet? It’s one of my favorite shopping trips of the year. I shop the week between Christmas and New Year’s, when calendars are 50% off at most bookstores. This started when we were younger and poorer, but now it feels like the sporting way to do it.

Shopping as sport makes me more open to unusual choices:  I might not choose a calendar of baby pigs if I’m paying full-price and choosing from the full line of options, but I might do so if I’m choosing from the picked-over shelves—and sometimes a calendar of baby pigs is the very thing I never knew I needed in my life.
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Do you realize that Christmas Eve is one week from today?  I’m making a list of gifts that have been given to ME in the past year, gifts that were a success and that you might want to consider buying for someone on your list.

My brother and sister-in-law gave me several pairs of earrings from the Etsy shop Kneehighs-n-Pigtails, and I LOVE them.  They’re so classy and dressy if you’re looking classy and dressy, but they look chic and awesome with t-shirt and jeans, too.
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I am not saying that good things don’t come in small packages, because of COURSE they do.  But sometimes a $20 CD can look, well, smaller than $20.  And sometimes a $20 throw blanket can look bigger than $20.

If you’re cutting down on gift spending this year, you might want to get more bang for your buck, as it were, by saving yourself money—and also giving the recipient a way to save some money themselves.  Or you might be trying to snow your in-laws into thinking you spent more than you did.  I’m not going to look too closely at your motivations, I’m just going to give you some big-looking, small-costing ideas that happen to go along with all the things people say they’re doing to save money these days.
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So. November. About seven weeks left until the winter holidays. TIME TO PANIC.

Or for those of us who lovvvvve gift-buying, time to YAY! Time to start spending time every day prowling around looking for deals. Time to start placing orders and squirreling them away, and forgetting what’s already there, and ending up with too much for some people and not enough for others! Yay!

And this means I only have about seven Tuesdays left to share gift ideas and great finds with you, and
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Today’s topic doesn’t really have to do with Top Secret, Little-Known products you’ve never heard of, but rather a collection of a few things I’ve found immensely useful over the last few years that maybe aren’t the first things that come to mind when you think “Parenting Must-Haves”. I’m hoping you share some of your own in the comments!

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If you like pink, October is a good time to shop:  a lot of pink stuff is available for National Breast Cancer Awareness Month.  If you’re like me, you like supporting that cause and also really like the way it justifies a purchase.

Coffee-Mate is offering a pink mug for $12.95; $5.00 is donated.
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I recently complained on my own blog about a search for flush-mount (flat against the ceiling, rather than dangling from it) light fixtures for our new dining room. I went to a local lighting store, where almost Every Single Option looked like a BREAST.

This Ashton Manor fixture from LightingUniverse.com gives the basic idea.  It was even more comical as I stood in the display room looking up at row after row of similar choices.  And, er…..I needed TWO.
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