Okay, after reading this, I may have to turn in my woman card, but, what? I think I can understand the ruining one pair part (due to your period, I guess?), but I’m lost on the rest. Unless someone is a stripper, what difference does it make what color your crotch is on your undies? And I’ve never considered what my hidden garments look like, except to an intimate partner. Who else will see them in a regular line of work? Do you folks have open air communal restrooms or something? Little help grokking this please?
My dude has about five or six man bags; I carry either a Coach bag big enough only for a small wallet or my briefcase (for school).
As for expenses, it’s swings and roundabouts, though, isn’t it.
For example, I have to commute to school, so there’s parking and fuel/railway tickets. He makes about 2 1/2 times what I do, but when he has to go into the office, it’s 250 miles away, so that’s fuel and B & B costs. When I have to go on the road for work, they usually pay a good percentage of my travel costs.
Or haircuts – he gets his short back and sides for £10; same place charges me £20 just to even up my ends. But I go every 8 weeks, and he’s there every 10 days.
Also, he goes through Citroens (or their parts) the way I go through nail varnish. He also spends a hell of a lot more on his manscaping supplies than I do on girly stuff, and God knows I have a hell of a lot of girly stuff.
The only rationale I can think of for that is if, like at one of my former employers, you have an on-site gym with a changing room where, yes, your coworkers could potentially see the state of your underwear. In which case I’d give a damn if the period-panties were totally stained/ragged or not, but still can’t see going through that many on a regular basis.
I still don’t get “ruining one pair a month”, though. I buy new underwear maybe every year or two, and it’s not expensive, high-end stuff. Mine usually give me a year or two of service prior to hitting the rag-bag. Maybe the high level manager in the gym changing room feels a need to wear something more upscale than the bargain briefs at Target and K-Mart and Wal-Mart but, seriously, if your panties don’t last more than a month you’re getting ripped off.
Apologies for double posting – I agree wholeheartedly with you on this one. I have no idea what the mister is doing in the toilet, but he goes through a full roll in a day. When I’m home alone, I might need a new roll every 3-4 days.
I know the cliche is that women use up more bog roll than men, but what the hell is he doing in there? Smoking it? (And, no, he’s not particularly hirsute, which, I’ve learned from people on this message board, can be an issue for guys).
The dude seriously buys arsewipe by the case.
I’m intrigued as well by women in the thread who’ve listed the costs of professional-wear; I’d go nuts if I had those costs/dress codes. I lecture, have administrative duties, and have to give public talks (for conferences and lecture societies) once or twice a month, and I do love dressing up and wearing mad clothes for these things. But most of my clothes come from secondhand stores, consignment shops, and eBay, among other things – I’ve got a colleague who’s got a wardrobe filled with bitching Armani suits he’s bought from charity shops and second-hand.
I dislike high street chains, but have a taste for couture, but damned if I’ll pay full price for it!
I would think that if you are consistently ruining your white-crotch underwear, you might eventually learn that white-crotch underwear just aren’t for you and you would buy something else. But what do I know?
Periods certainly can be expensive if you aren’t a fan of the Divacup/Keeper options. But the cost of supplies more than dwarves the cost of underwear replacement, in my experience. (As it should be. Why spend $10 a month on tampons and pads if I’m just going to toss my panties in the trash anyway?)
If I lived alone, I think a roll would last about two weeks. A roll a day?? That’s a puzzle.
How do I put this without sounding too crass?
We are both in our mid-50s. We hang with people our age, so I don’t really know any women earning minimum wage. Hmmmm.
That said, bartenders I talk to who are in their 20s are either spending $$ on looking good, or else it just comes naturally.
Right? But I think this sort of thing was originally mentioned as one of those items that women are “expected” to upkeep in such a way, and what I’m baffled about, even if your underwear looks like Leatherface slaughtered a whole bus load of stoned a d stupid college kids in there, who actually sees it? I’ve never, ever known what the whites of my co-workers’ crotches look like. Nor would I want to.
I’m not sure I get most of the outrage over this list. Yeah, I don’t buy most of these things or pay these prices for them, but I’m also not in management and have no need to look like I am. I’m fortunate enough to have nice skin, hair that’s going gray in a pattern that makes my box dye look like I have highlights, naturally thin arched eyebrows, and a job where “professional” means clean, pressed, and not covered in hair and/or body fluids. But I can’t really argue with most of the items themselves for someone in management.
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A new outfit a month, or roughly 3 outfits a season. Seems reasonable to keep up with wear and tear, damage, fit changes, and things going out of fashion.
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Cut once a month, and a root touch up if you dye. BFD.
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I don’t wear makeup on anything like a regular basis, but if you’re doing a full face every day, it seems like most months some product or other would be running out.
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Two weeks is about how long a manicure tends to last, and a month for a pedicure. If you’re going to go the professional route, that’s about how often you’d need to go in to keep things nice.
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Depends on how complicated your skin care routine is, but I recently got a sample pack of a full anti-aging line from a friend who’s taking up shilling such things, and there’s 7 different products they recommend to use every day. Seven. It seems like you’d be running out of something or other every month or two if you did all that.
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I don’t use commercial hair products, but it seems like my husband buys a bottle of shampoo every couple months. Add in conditioner and a styling product or two, and it doesn’t seem unreasonable to be out of something most months.
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This seems a little excessive, but then again over the course of the year, I probably do buy close to a dozen accessory type items. A purse or two, a couple pairs of shoes, a necklace and earrings to go with a new outfit, sunglasses to replace the pair I lost/damaged, a cute ring at a craft fair, etc, etc.
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Okay, I really don’t understand the shrieking about this one. Having 12 new pairs of underpants a year is not some unimaginable luxury, and the elastic in a bra really only give you good support for about 6-9 months if you wear it once a week. So replacing one a month doesn’t seem unreasonable at all if you’re wanting to keep things pulled up and in and looking their best.
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Outside hippie circles, ignoring this one will get you talked about. A lot.
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Eating a balanced diet should eliminate the need for vitamins, but if you’re going to take them, you might as well take the pre-natals. They cost about the same and tend to make your hair and nails look better.
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Okay, nobody is actually bitching about this one.
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Optional in most circumstances, but if you’re going to skip them you’re more likely to want/need pedicures and/or some sunless tanner for your legs.
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Nobody’s going to stone you for looking like Frieda Kahlo, but they’re also not going to think you’re professional and put-together.
I could totally see this happening if the culture of the workplace isn’t image-focused.
A pair of panties a month for 12 pairs of panties. If you keep those 12 panties for two years each, at any given time you will have 24 pairs of panties. That’s a good number of panties, but hardly an unthinkable number.
There’s no question that women, no matter what their line of work is, tend to spend more time and money on their looks than men do.
But I think people are getting hung up on the notion that women must maintain a high standard ($150 hair cuts) to join the managerial ranks. This is more debatable. It’s also really hard to test. Even if every single female manager you’ve ever had conformed to a certain style, that doesn’t mean that a woman must look like that to be promoted. It could just be that female managers are overly concerned about looking a certain way. If you’re already the “odd ball” in the boardroom, maybe you don’t want to make yourself even more different.
In the mail we get a coupon every or every-other month from Victoria’s Secret good for a free pair of panties.
/panty talk
And theirs tend to last… But then, I amassed enough over years that they last me… well… years… :o
No, what you’re doing is hanging with people in your socio-economic class. There are PLENTY of people in their mid-50’s earning minimum wage or only slightly above it. Look at all the old farts behind the counter at fast food places. The people in big box stores acting as greeters or stocking shelves or cleaning the toilets.
You aren’t seeing them. To you their invisible. Try looking around a little harder.
It’s generally easier to look good when you’re young.
I have at any one time about 16 pairs - one for every day for two weeks plus a couple spares. I buy, maybe six in a year, sometimes less. There is some attrition, of course, hence why I almost never have 24 at any one time.
It’s not the notion that 24 pairs is “unthinkable”, it’s the notion that you’re ruining a pair a month,. Do you have unpredictable gusher periods? If so, OK, I could see there being an issue but, like faithfool said, even if it looks like someone was ax-murdered in the crotch of your underwear who the hell would ever know? I can understand keeping those in reserve for heavy flow days, but unless your place of employment has underwear inspections (or you change in a public gym area) who the hell would ever know what state your panties are in? Find stained panties aesthetically unpleasing? Sure, I get that, but you’re getting that sort of wear often enough you have to toss a pair a month?
Even when I was working in construction and in the summer I was dealing with epic levels of sweat along with chafing my panties weren’t wearing out that fast.
Seriously, look into a different brand or something. I don’t think you’re getting a good value for what you’re spending.
Bolding mine.
they’re.
We hang with people our age who, it turns out, are also, unsurprisingly, in our socioeconomic group. They are our friends. I’m happy with them. The ones earning minimum wage are not invisible to me, but they are not who we hang out with.
He is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside a bog roll, that’s for sure.
I have no intentions to pursue it any more than I want to know why there is a solid, ribbed cylindrical stick of rubber an inch and diameter and about 15 in length lying here on his desk.
And if there’s a link between the two, well, like Ed Wood, if I judged people, I’d have no friends.
No individual item on the list is too outrageous, even if some of it is more than what I’d pay. Counting all of that as typical monthly expenses is nearly $700/mo just on looking good. Not every woman, professional or in management or not, needs all of these, and these expenses don’t need to take place every single month. I just spent $100 today getting my hair done which is something I have done like clockwork every 6 weeks - this is pretty standard, I believe. The difference between every 6 weeks and once a month is a few hundred bucks every year. I also don’t spend $600/year on underwear. I shave my legs, sure, but I don’t buy $10 worth of razors every month. I also happen to not be hairy at all. I couldn’t sport a Frida Kahlo if I tried, so no need for regular brow waxings, and even in the summer when my legs show nearly every day, I still only need to shave every third day, so that’s probably just me. My point is, because I like repeating myself, that most women don’t need to do all of this stuff every single month.
I still agree that being a woman is more expensive - guys don’t get $150 haircuts and they don’t (mostly) wear makeup, but it’s not like every single month you have to bring home bags full of cosmetics and shoes.
Or sunglasses.