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Ugly sweaters have been huge lately, and if you have a post-Christmas get-together that requires one, do consider this Star Wars version. I think it’s pretty cool — I’m a Star Wars fan and my boys are as well — and I can easily imagine Darth Vader saying, “I find your lack of cheer disturbing.” I also like that instead of a sweater it’s actually a sweatshirt. It’s available in three colors at Amazon for $31.99 Star Wars Ugly Christmas Sweater
Sales of note for 4.18.24
(See all of the latest workwear sales at Corporette!)
- Ann Taylor – 50% off full-price dresses, jackets & shoes; $30 off pants & skirts; extra 50% off sale styles
- Banana Republic Factory – Up to 50% off everything; extra 20% off purchase
- Eloquii – 50% off select styles; 60% off swim; up to 40% off everything else
- J.Crew – Mid-Season Sale: Extra 60% off sale styles; up to 50% off spring-to-summer styles
- Lands’ End – 30% off full-price styles
- Loft – Spring Mid-Season Sale: Up to 50% off 100s of styles
- Nordstrom: Free 2-day shipping for a limited time (eligible items)
- Talbots – Spring Sale: 40% off + extra 15% off all markdowns; 30% off new T by Talbots
- Zappos – 29,000+ women’s sale items! (check out these reader-favorite workwear brands on sale, and some of our favorite kids’ shoe brands on sale)
Kid/Family Sales
- Carter’s – Up to 70% off baby items; 50% off toddler & kid deals & 40% off everything else
- Hanna Andersson – Up to 50% off spring faves; 25% off new arrivals; up to 30% off spring
- J.Crew Crewcuts – Up to 60% off sale styles; up to 50% off kids’ spring-to-summer styles
- Old Navy – 30% off your purchase; up to 75% off clearance
- Target – Car Seat Trade-In Event (ends 4/27); BOGO 25% off select skincare products; up to 40% off indoor furniture; up to 20% off laptops & printers
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And — here are some of our latest threadjacks of interest – working mom questions asked by the commenters!
- If you’re a working parent of an infant with low sleep needs, how do you function at work when you’re in the throes of baby’s sleep regression?
- Should I cut my childcare down to 12 hours a month if I work from home?
- Will my baby have speech delays if we raise her bilingual?
- Has anyone given birth in a teaching hospital?
- My child eats everything, and my friends’ kids do not – how should I handle? In general, what is the best way to handle when your child has some skill/ability and your friend’s child doesn’t have that skill/ability?
- ADHD moms, give me your tips to help with things like behavior in the classroom, attention to detail, etc?
- I think I suffer from mom rage…
- My husband and kids are gone this weekend – how should I enjoy my free time?
- I’m struggling to be compassionate with a SAHM friend who complains she doesn’t have enough hours of childcare.
- If you exclusively formula fed, what tips do you have for in the hospital and coming home?
- Could I take my 4-yo and 8-yo on a 7-8 day trip to Paris, Lyon, and Madrid?
anne-on says
Survey/question for everyone – what do you spend on groceries a month? We just started tracking our finances via a budgeting app in December (more than a bit disheartening during the holiday spend btw) and our grocery budget is right now set to come in at about $1400 this month.
We’re hosting Christmas Eve/Christmas dinners, as well as having baked loads of cookies/candy for the holidays, so I know the ‘real’ number is probably $1000 but that still seems awful high to me. We live in a HCOL NorthEast town, and are a family of 3 (plus a teenage au pair, who eats like, well, a teenager). My husband brings lunch about 3x/week, and I work from home so we’re also not eating lunches out (for myself or the au pair).
Reasonable? Crazy? I don’t think I cook outlandishly pricey meals, and we don’t go out to eat much with 4 people so I guess I can sort of justify it.
Pogo says
We’re probably between $500-700 most months, family of 2 currently. We consciously spend a lot on groceries though – Whole Foods, wild-caught salmon, organic produce, that kind of thing. We don’t eat out very much, and we love cooking, so we find it justified. I could see it being closer to $1000 with a kiddo and a teenage au pair.
One thing that creeps up our grocery bill is when I let DH go himself and he buys a bunch of random crap not on the list because he wants it, mostly snacky items like fancy popcorn or sweet-potato chips. I am not a snacky person, so I find this stuff frivolous, but it makes him happy so I don’t fight it.
The other thing that evens it out for us and makes us feel like its ‘ok’ to spend so much is that other months when one or both of us travels we might only spend $200, because work pays for all our meals.
Pogo says
Haha I re-read this and I sound like such a grouchy shrew of a wife who won’t let her husband buy popcorn! I’m not that bad, I swear!
NewMomAnon says
I actually nodded when I read that – whenever I buy snack foods, they just sit in the cupboard and go stale because apparently I don’t snack? As in, it seems like a great idea at the store to buy fancy popcorn, and then I open it at home, eat one helping, and throw the rest out in several months.
It doesn’t help that my kiddo’s eyes go wide as saucers whenever she sees something chocolate or branded with Disney stuff, so grocery shopping turns into a prolonged set of negotiations. I’ve started sneaking in my grocery shopping trips when she’s with her dad.
Anonymous says
I don’t want to snack if I don’t have any snack foods. But I lack willpower, and if they’re there, I eat them. Unfortunately, my husband loves snacks and will try to be helpful by buying things he knows I like, no matter how many times I explain to him that I really don’t want a tub of nutella in my house, even though it is delicious (or rather, *because* it is delicious).
pockets says
Would it help if you told your daughter that she can get ONE thing, and then let her pick out that thing. I think our kids are about the same age, and that’s what I do to handle the grocery shopping drama. We usually come home with a pack of jelly beans or Elsa gummy bears, but it’s only one pack.
Anonymama says
Also before you go in the store make clear she can only have one thing and if she keeps asking for more she doesn’t get that one thing.
TK says
Around $500 a month, two adults and a toddler, mostly vegetarian. We’re in a M-L COL (Twin Cities.) Lunch for toddler is provided by his school. I bring lunch about 2x a week, husband works from home and will typically eat leftovers.
Lyssa says
We spend somewhere in the neighborhood of $650/mo (that counts all consumables – diapers, cleaning supplies, make up, etc.) for me, my husband, and two preschool kids, with husband home with the kids and me bringing a lunch the majority of the time. Low cost of living area. We like to cook well, but we also eat a lot of pasta and generally avoid convenience-type foods.
NewMomAnon says
MCOL, just me and a toddler – I try to aim for $100 a week. But that’s for groceries and papergoods, laundry detergent, cleaning stuff, etc because I shop at Target so I can buy it all at the same time. I keep food in my office for lunches, but also get many lunches provided through work.
In all, I’d say probably $500-$600 per month including a few meals out with kiddo, a few lunches out, or fancy meals out with friends.
anne-on says
I should have also noted – this includes cleaning supplies/paper goods/cat food & litter as they’re all bought at my grocery store. We don’t tend to eat a lot of pasta, so we do buy quite a bit of milk/eggs/cheese/meat and prefer organic for those items, which pushes up the number too of course.
Spirograph says
I think we average around $800+ a month on groceries, but I haven’t actually broken it out in our budget recently. I remember thinking it was shockingly high last time I did the analysis – but that includes everything we buy at a grocery store or costco. Family of 5, but the baby doesn’t eat store-bought stuff yet, and the two other kids are preschoolers (hungry preschoolers).
My husband is a total spendthrift impulse shopper, and buys snacks, treats, convenience food and other stuff that I prefer not to keep in the house, and also doesn’t do a great job of meal planning which occasionally results in waste. So a lot depends on who’s doing most of the shopping/cooking that week.
I bring my lunch to work almost every day, and my husband buys lunch almost every day. We eat out as a family about once a week and order pizza a couple times per month (basically whenever I’m not home for dinner, husband orders pizza. I have managed to cut down on this somewhat by keeping the freezer stocked with Digiorno). Our total food costs are definitely over $1k, but my attempts to rein it in have been unsuccessful and I’ve kind of decided it’s not a hill I want to die on.
ChiLaw says
Just added up our last 30 days of expenses. Basic groceries (incl Target stuff) = $900.
Fancy indulgences (beer and cheese, basically) = $250.
Damn. We should probably… not. I guess we did host two sets of out of town guests (which included indulgent food and drinks) and stock up for the holidays, but still.
layered bob says
$900/month on groceries
$250/month on dining out/drinks/coffee
Two high-metabolism adults and one very hungry baby. Mostly vegetarian but we pay $120/month for a meat-and-eggs share from a local farm that matches our values. We do all our carbs from scratch so we can soak/ferment them, but spend a lot on pre-cut organic veggies and that kind of thing. Also I think we throw out an aspirational container of mixed greens that goes slimy every week.
Pogo says
lol at the “aspirational container of mixed greens”. Honestly, the only way to use them up before they get slimy is to have a salad every.single.day. I don’t know how but they must pack 200 servings of spinach into those things.
Closet Redux says
We are two adults and a toddler and spend about $400 / month, including groceries, paper goods, diapers, etc. We’re vegetarian, so I suppose that makes our bill lower than otherwise, but we also buy mostly organic produce and milk, and try to buy local produce when available. We basically never buy convenience foods because we love cooking and have the time to do it.
For us I think the real kicker is that we rarely buy anything we don’t consume. We make a meal plan every weekend and buy the week’s groceries from a list. We make enough for dinner and leftovers for lunch the next day. We make everything on the list so rarely toss unused food.
Anon in NYC says
We spend about $1,000 per month on groceries and takeout. Sometimes a little more. That is a combo of organic and non-organic meat, vegetables, dairy, etc. but excludes paper products.
We try to cook 4-5x per week, and our spending also usually covers breakfast and lunches, and all meals for our toddler (we send food to daycare).
Anon says
Probably $300-400/mo including non-food grocery items (cleaning supplies, beer and wine, hair products etc) but not including diapers. 2 adults, one with a huge appetite, and one ravenous toddler, MCOL area. While in law school I kept it to $35/week for myself (still a splurge over my americorps year!) and we still aim for $70/week in actual food. Those non-food items add up though, and we will sometimes buy a lot of X product on sale, like my breakfast cereal or organic meat, driving up the cost that week. We eat meat about four to six times a month and try to buy organic, strive for organic for the dirty dozen, and splurge on least cruel eggs we can. We cook mostly from scratch and usually pretty simply. Spouse likes to buy more convenience items like frozen rice and is less likely to keep a running log in his head of what is a good price for X items.
Anon says
I spend on average $200/week at various grocery stores. I work from home and DH gets lunch at work most days, which is $5-7/day max so like $100/mo. We have a 3 y/o and 6 m/o so never eat out! We rarely do take out and opt instead for easy trader joes meals, pasta+ frozen meatballs or homemade (pizza crust from a can, let’s not be crazy) on hectic nights when we’d typically default to takeout.
Anon says
That budget includes wine, which I buy at the grocery store ;)
NewMomAnon says
The Boboli pizza crusts (actually the Target brand pizza crusts) are a huge hit in my house, and easier than the stuff in the can. They also cook in less time. Also – you can pop them on the grill and they get a little crispy like a real pizza place. Mmmm….
Anon says
We do both- 3 y/O likes “making” dough and sometimes we cut it with cookie cutters if we are feeling crazy ;)
SC says
We are 2 adults and one toddler in a MCOL area. Toddler gets lunch and snacks provided at school. And we still average about $850/month on groceries, $150/month on takeout or casual meals out, and $200-250/month on lunches out (DH will not take a lunch, and I have tried everything to “encourage” him to, and I meet friends about once a week). This includes paper goods, laundry detergent, etc., but not diapers or pet food. We also spend $100-150 on a special occasion dinner out 4-5 times a year, but I pull that from our “entertainment” budget, not our “food” budget.
We eat a lot of meat (especially DH). I have been trying to eat healthy to lose weight, so I buy a nice variety of fruit and vegetables and try to stick to lean meats. We have friends or family, usually just 1-2 people at a time, over once or twice a week. We also eat a fair number of convenience foods, which add up–granola bars, frozen meals from Trader Joe’s for some of my lunches, individual yogurt cups and snack packs and oatmeal packets for Toddler. And we throw more away than I’d like to admit–I’ve finally given up on buying that container of “aspirational greens,” but I’m still buying and throwing away a couple of tomatoes every week. I’ve succeeded in cutting our spending on restaurants and lunches out without increasing the grocery budget by very much. But the next step is to try to cut our grocery budget by at least $100/month.
uncooperative says
I think we probably average at least $150 a week (probably closer to $200) on groceries for 2 adults and 1 preschooler in a very HCOL area. We both bring lunch to work at least 4 days/week and pack food for our child (not that he actually eats anything but carbs). We are pretty thrifty with food – we don’t buy organic and not a lot of convenience or fancy food, use store brands, and stock up when things go on sale. And we don’t really drink or eat a ton of meat.
hoola hoopa says
Family of 5 in HCOL area. We spend ~$800/month. That’s ~$150/week plus the averaged cost of some major stock up trips (ie, Costco every other month, a good butcher shop every quarter).
We get family take out about twice a month, meet for a weekday lunch about twice a month but otherwise brown bag, and are mindful about our grocery shopping (ie, meal planning and only buying what we need).
We actually spent more as a childless couple, because we ate out a lot more (and at more expensive restaurants), bought more organic and top shelf items, and basically wasted a lot of food. We also shopped at more expensive stores (ie, Whole Foods), even for the same products that we now buy for less elsewhere.
Momata says
Obviously, the reason one can imagine Darth saying that is because he ACTUALLY said “I find your lack of faith disturbing.”
Anonymous says
Request for Kat: Can we book-club that series of Atlantic articles next week? For those of us who will be bored in an empty office, at least.
October says
I like that idea! The articles didn’t get too many comments on the Atlantic site (last I checked)….which is disappointing, as clearly I enjoy reading comments/discussion.
Pogo says
+1 would participate!
RDC says
Could you post a link to the articles? Also bored in an office today…
Pogo says
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/12/the-ambition-interviews-a-table-of-contents/510848/
NewMomAnon says
Ugh, a referral source just asked me to come to a pitch 3 hours away the day after New Years. It feels like a huge ask, and I’m struggling with how to respond. Theoretically, I could make it there and back within day care drop off and pick up times as long as the meeting is less than a couple hours….but then why do it? We have technology and phones and webconferencing and all that.
Also a little bit of imposter syndrome. Like, what if I get all the way out there and it turns out I can’t add any value to the potential client? Then I’ve lost a whole day of billables for nothing, and I feel like an idiot.
uncooperative says
So I am struggling with trying to say no to my son’s coop preschool. We have funding from a city agency that involves lots of mandatory professional development workshops for school staff, and this year, applying for a new contract and now negotiating the contract. Since the preschool has no actual staff other than teachers, parents take on a lot of this work. My regular coop “job” is related to dealing with the agency, but this year working on the contract application was a special added component that I thought was mostly going to be managed by another parent. She spearheaded the effort but delegated some big chunks of the application to me. It is hard for me to blame her though, as last year she was roped into being one of the coop’s leaders, which is definitely a bigger job, so she’s paid her dues. Anyway, I am now being asked if I can go to this orientation meeting for contract negotiations the first week in January. I feel like I use up all my PTO doing crap like this; meanwhile, I have never managed to take time off to do things that might actually be meaningful to my son, like chaperone a field trip or come in to school for a “family day.” Adding insult to injury is the fact that we have been in the process of renovating (lots of it ourselves),packing, and moving for the last 6 months and I need an actual day off that does not involve manual labor so badly I could scream. I just don’t know what to say. I could go to the meeting – I do not have a reason I MUST be at work that day. But if I go to it I can’t do something else I want to do. The other candidates are also working parents so probably are in similar boats, although some may have more PTO or flexibility than I do. UGH!!!
NewMomAnon says
Gosh, the thing that comes to mind is – would everyone in the co-op be willing to chip in an extra $100 each month (or some other amount) so the co-op could hire an admin person? Because they need one, especially if all the parents are working. I can see a preschool asking co-op parents to do things like provide community meals or wash cloth napkins or tend to classroom animals over the weekend, but this is a much bigger responsibility.
In other news, it sounds like a liability to have volunteer parents negotiating agency contracts. Have you checked whether the co-op’s insurance would cover you if there were a dispute about these negotiations?
uncooperative says
It is a nonprofit and all of the parents technically constitute the board, so I THINK the director’s and officer’s insurance is probably covering us?
Closet Redux says
I would propose exactly what you posit in your last sentence: ask another parent to do this. I would probably say to the other coordinating parent, “Ack, I would love to be able to take this on, but I’m running low on PTO and don’t think I can make it that week. Maybe another parent would be willing to step in? I can be the backup if no one else can do it.”
You’re really just saying “no” to one day right now, but it seems like this is a bigger issue for you. Agree with NewMomAnon that there may be a better longer-term fix by hiring a part-time admin to do the boring stuff so you can do the fun stuff like fieldtrips (not to mention all the other things you are coordinating in your life!).
As an aside, I always wondered how in the world daycare coops work– do the parents work part-time? How can a two-parent working family ever be in one of these coops?
uncooperative says
I was directly asked if I could do it so I responded that I needed to check to see if I had any PTO available, and if I did, I definitely couldn’t do a follow-up negotiation meeting. I’m waiting to hear back from my HR person about the PTO; I really may not have any immediately available. In the meantime maybe someone else will volunteer. I just hate the game of not-it – it is impossible to know whether my objections to doing this are more or less valid than everyone else’s.
There are definitely a lot of families where 1 parent has a part-time job, or at least makes their own hours. The particular subset of parents involved in this issue all happen to work full-time (although a couple have spouses that don’t work FT and yet are not the main parent involved in the coop, which is interesting, especially as these less involved spouses happen to be women). And a number of coop jobs do not involve these commitments during the day, I just got unlucky (or unwisely demonstrated myself to be reliable and competent; also I have relevant experience from my job job).
In our area most of the full-day coop preschools do have paid admins, but they are therefore more expensive – the lower cost of this one was one its main selling points for my husband and I. It seemed like a good idea at the time, you know? Anyway, its definitely an issue for working parents – I think the school as an institution has always been appealing for parents with less money and more time, but as the neighborhood has become more expensive, fewer families can afford to live nearby unless both parents work. (We don’t live right nearby and have both less time and less money, apparently). So there’s a question of the long-term viability of the current coop model. Since this is our last year there I am not invested in making big structural changes; this transience in membership is also a problem with the coop model.
uncooperative says
Update, since I am getting not a single thing done today: it turns out I have more PTO left than I thought, particularly sick days. So I caved and am taking an half personal day for this. Maybe a full personal day except its the first week after new year and already a short week – such crappy timing. I need to plan to use a sick day for a field trip and actual relaxation soon.