Alice:  You’ve really thought this through Tina.

Tina:  That is how I was raised. You maximize what you have. If you have excess, you give it to those who will use it. And you make a note to yourself about what you did to overestimate the quantity you have. You try to have just enough possibly a little more. The waste you avoid helps your future and achieve that which you will enjoy. That is one of the things that Bette learned during some of our troubles.

Tina: I probably went a little overboard. But we both started to pay attention to what we were doing with our money. We stopped shopping for shopping’s sake.  We bought clothes we needed and not just what we wanted. I stopped getting three hundred-dollar haircuts and she limited her shoe purchases to replacements for those which were worn out. And she disposed of those which she would not wear under any circumstance. We still both have very nice wardrobes. But we are far more likely to dig and find something we haven’t worn in a while rather than go buy another outfit. And now that we are moving to California, much of our wardrobe will be sufficient for the next few years.  We both try to buy classic clothing which will stay fresh and stylish for years to come. Trendy clothes have no long-term value. We may spend more for individual items but we expect to be wearing them for five to ten years. We just buy less of them.  I bet that half our wardrobe we purchased prior to moving to New York. Particularly our formal wear is almost all that old. Of course, we will probably have fewer formal occasions now, but I think we are in good shape. After all it’s been 10 years since most of the people have seen us in our formal wear. We can bring it out and no one is going to know whether its old or we just purchased it for the event.

Alice: Wow…you are right. Lynn wears classic suits and some of hers a more than a decade old.  She has to replace her shirts more often because the laundry is a bit rough on them. We are starting to buy shirts and blouses which we can wash in our own machine.  Usually they look better and they last longer. But they are always in a classic style. They may be a little more expensive, but we don’t have to replace them as quickly. But her suits, they are all dry clean only.