Portfolio Optimization: Garage Sale 2

Portfolio Optimization is on again at The Trad Pad.

Two single women with too much stuff.

Two households and the remains of two shops are - after two and a half years - still being divested and blended as mother and daughter live together.

We are garage sale-ing this weekend.

For more information, email Miss Eagle off the side bar.

Here are some of the things:

A providential name?

Among Miss Eagle's weekly dose of spam (sounds like an STD - perhaps a spam transmitted disease?), was the wonderful name of Providencia Sims.

Providencia....what a wonderful name, Miss E thought. So distinguished. Rolls off the tongue. And a virtue - like Faith, Hope, Charity, Felicity. Brings back memories of Evelyn Waugh's Bright Young Things. Miss Eagle mentioned it to Herself who wondered about the possibility of a sibling named Prudentia.

Of course, Miss E had to Google these wonderfully creative names didn't she. The balloon of presitigious nomenclature was thoroughly punctured.

Providencia is the name of a bacterium (how appropriate for a spammer). As for Prudentia, this is a favourite of the disciples of Mammon - investment banks and others of this genre.

Cath Kidston hits the shelves in Target

It is not only Stella McCartney who has invaded Target.

Herself and Miss Eagle were in Target for some winter clothing shopping. Of course, we had a browse. Herself and Miss E would have you know, dear Reader, that we have great admiration for the eye and the skills of the person who does the homeware and manchester purchasing for Target. Good stuff priced well! Then, in our browsing, you could have knocked each of us over with a feather!

There before our eyes was the magical name of Cath Kidston!

Now, dear Reader, if you have done any exploring you will know that Cath's wares have a certain cachet and are not available just anywhere and everywhere. In Melbourne, the very few number of stores who stock Cath's fabrics are only to be found in the "better" suburbs. So, to find her famous name even on toiletries was a surprise. So we spent the princely sum of A$7.99 to get our souvenir - a hatbox will have to wait until later!

Glass and style

You will recall, dear Reader, the recent opp shop expedition with Gina and Sharon?

Herself, ever the stylist, took the small selection of glassware that Miss Eagle made that day, put it together with some from a previous solo expedition and added it all to our existing collection and this is how it all looked.

Shopping: therapy, festival, compulsion, illness, manipulation

Ramada - Mall of America

Shopping is better than sex.
If you're not satisfied after shopping you can make an exchange for something you really like.

Adrienne Gusoff

Shop Til You Drop Magazine

What is it about shopping? What is it about shopping and the female of the species? Can we live with it? Can we live without it?

We talk about retail therapy. There seems to be a word for shopping til you drop: oniomania. Melbourne - which has more than its fair share of bread and circuses - is contemplating, as Miss Eagle has mentioned before, a shopping festival. Dubai actually has one and so has Hong Kong.

It is lovely to walk through beautiful shops selling beautiful things - even if one doesn't spend. Miss Eagle can still dream about Prada and Bulgari even if she can't afford it. This is why, even though she has not spent a cent there, Miss E was thrilled by the refurbishment of the Ground Floor at David Jones' Burke Street Mall store.

Could there possibly be a down side?

There is the illness. The cultural distortion which sees Hot Cross Buns - an Easter tradition - on sale before Epiphany. Advertising manipulating our children. The sexualization of our children. And for more information on how, when we consume, we are consumed go here.

Then there is the economic impact. Some see the globalization of retail and commodities which it sells as a positive thing. This article - brief as it is - comes out on the positive size while mentioning social disruption and the loss of jobs in some sectors of the economy.

We need to remember that when we purchase all that stuff from China and India it is great for their economies. And they really do need jobs. But when we lose jobs in this nation, we also lose skills - skills that are not always readily replaced with new ones. We can also lose access to jobs and personal economic development for women and young people.

So what is the solution? Miss E has none except the caveat emptor (buyer beware) provisions. Be aware! Demand accountability - not just from individuals but from governments and corporations.

If we become aware and demand accountability, we will become smart, ethical shoppers.

And for increasing numbers of us, we will go this way to the opp shop.