Shopping Nirvana

I'd like to preface this post with a statement of the fact that I'm really no shop-a-holic. Far from it. My friends will all tell you that I'm really a bit of a dag.

I do, of course, love a bargain, and if I want something that I'm expecting to have last me a while, I'm prepared to pay accordingly. It's just that sometimes you need things.

It had been becoming more and more obvious that I was in need of a new handbag. The old one was literally starting to fall apart. The lining had torn and things kept disappearing into some alternate universe that had formed in there.

A handbag is a very important thing for me. It's the one thing that follows me pretty much everywhere and gets used pretty much every single day. I'm in and out of it constantly, and often need to find stuff quickly yet have the contents kept safe. for this reason design is very important. In the past I've even taken to drawing my own designs for the perfect handbag (pity I don't have the skills to actually execute the designs...). So basically, I was prepared for a fairly generous budget.

Normally when I shop I'm pretty much a "go - find - buy" type of person, but this particular handbag purchase turned out to be quite a tricky one. No fewer than four previous shopping expeditions has proven fruitless (and handbagless, too).

At the end of my wits, I had decided to try something different and go across to Birkenhead Point, a factory outlet centre in Sydney and try my luck there.

Well, let me tell you. It was worth the drive. I hit total shopping nirvana. First I found the perfect handbag. Perfect size, plenty of compartments, very much my style. And it came in at under half the budget.

Then, whilst leaving, I walked past my favourite shoe brand's store - and they were having a 20%-off-already-discounted-items-sale. As I was also in need of some new winter boots it seemed like it was worth checking out. As luck would have it, the pair I fell in love with at first sight was not only available in my size, but added to the handbag cost, still came in under budget!!

All in about 40 minutes by the time I browsed, tried on and paid.

Woo hoo!

OK, maybe I should have a put a disclaimer on the top about "boys may not want to read this" or something.

Ah well, bad luck. :-)