Sunday Steal: Electric Neon Saucony Guide 8s

This Sunday Steal section is an embarassingly massive deal for me because it marks my return to the promised land of retail after the Great Shopping Drought of 2016. 

That's right. I gave up shopping, COLD TURKEY, for the entirety of Lent 2016. I'm proud to confirm that I didn't break my vows once.

The full motives behind that choice will be covered at a later date. In brief: I have a serious weakness for bargains and wandering the thrift store aisles became my favorite wind down activity. Over the years, this left me with a really disjointed, but admirably bargain-heavy Goodwill wardrobe. 

The upside is that I'm basically the Bear Grylls of thrifting. When the apocalypse hits, I fully expect the factions to spill blood to earn my prime scavenging skills. 

The downside of bargain hunting is that you're at the mercy of the thrift shop gods, meaning that you never seem to check the actual staples off your list. By being unwilling to shop at a "real store" or pay more than $10 per item, I was never acquiring the real essentials or investment pieces. 

Although I clearly haven't turned into a true minimalist, I am deciding to be more deliberate about my buys in 2016. In practice, that means really narrowing in on the genuine, get-in-the-way-of-doing-what-you-need-to-do, holes in my wardrobe. 

Which means I'm willing to offer up an example of what a "wardrobe hole" is. I'm sorry to burden you with the tragic photos of my previous running shoes, but I think they're going to get the point across. 

I'm sure that gaping hole in the heel doesn't affect shoe integrity, nope!

I really gave up exercise in a lot of ways during my undergrad years (note: if the dancing is done while drinking and followed by a sausage and toast hangover cure it really doesn't seem to burn many calories). That left no justification for new shoes.

Now that I'm an old lady, I'm getting back into running. In truth this sudden increase in physical activity stems from my mortal fear that eventual childbirth is going to destroy my body, but that's a deep, dark fear for another day. I ran a little over 9 miles in March on those old shoes, and it became clear pretty quickly that the knee and joint pain was going to discourage me from continuing. 

I did my research and was over the moon to find these bad boys that retail for $120 on sale at 6pm.com. Don't worry friends, I haven't completely lost my mind, and hung around for the 50% off sale with free shipping.

I'm really, really excited about these bad boys.

You aren't picking up on a certain philosophy about color in my life yet, are you?

And I'm really thrilled to use my new shopping philosophy to shell out a reasonable amount of money to plug a true wardrobe hole. Now if only I could find the perfect shrunken, 3/4 length, black cardigan in Supima cotton.  Oh dear... I've gone from Bear Grylls to Goldilocks!