Shopping.

I was at the mall this past Saturday. Just like everyone else, I was just hanging around trying to look for some good deals. I didn't find any doorbusters or anything except for a little sale on some Levi's at Sears of all places. I actually still had a lot of money left over from the gift card, etc. I got from the Ellen Show last month. Since it's not a place that I normally go to, I kind of forced myself to use it. Poor me. LOL.

As I walked through the mall, I just realized that this was actually the first time I had to myself to do any kind of recreational shopping post-holiday. Is it me or are things just a lot more expensive now??? Abercrombie and Fitch had quite a few sale items, but $49 for beat up and holey sweatshirts?!? No thanks. Being the brand name label snob that I am, I only really buy clothing from The Gap family of stores (Gap, Banana Republic, and Old Navy). I've been shopping a lot more at the latter of the three because I'm poor and cheap. Thank goodness I don't have to REALLY dress nice at work. LOL. The blaring thing that I noticed on this particular day was the LACK of new product put out. The back of The Gap store was basically empty except for EMPTY fixtures and a smattering of some clearance items. I'm guessing they were going to do one big rollout of merchandise for the spring soon. I dunno -- it just looked ugly. Banana had some stuff I could have used, but as a former employee, I know how much that stuff really goes down in price if you're lucky. Since I'm not privy to those extra discounted opportunities anymore I decided to wait for the next mid-season clearance for better stuff. Yes, I'm a whiney brat. Thank you.

Anyway, business as a whole where I work was decent. They haven't shared any numbers with us officially, but I know we definitely didn't do as bad as other retailers out there. The 2nd pic above is of a Mervyn's department store. As you can see, it was totally empty except for some of the fixtures. I think they actually started clearing out right after Christmas. Kind of daunting, huh?