False economies

No, I haven't sorted my gas and electricity bills yet. This week, I promise!

In the interim I thought I'd tell you a little story about a blouse. Last weekend I went to a friend's wedding, and I had nothing appropriate to wear - my one wedding outfit is a summer ensemble. So I asked a friend if I could borrow an outfit, and she obliged. It was a gorgeous colourful silk top and fancy skirt. I looked lovely and received lots of compliments on the night. And I was feeling rather smug that I hadn't needed to go out and spend lots of money on a new outfit!

However, disaster occurred when mains were served at the same time as speeches. I dropped an oily salad leaf down my front and there was a rather noticeable oil stain right on centre of the blouse.  Disaster!

Anyway, to cut a long story cut short, I attempted to clean the blouse myself. I've always been a bit skeptical about the need for dry cleaning and I had done a quick hand wash before I wore it and it was fine. However, my scrubbing and the strong detergent completely ruined the top.

I felt physically ill as soon as I realised, and felt sick until I went around the next night to tell my friend the bad news. I knew it had been one of her favourite tops and on high rotation in her wardrobe. I wrote a 'sorry' card and withdrew a large amount of money so she could try to replace it and/or buy a whole new outfit.

In the end she was great about it and only accepted a token amount of the money. But it made me realise a few things:

• 1) Don't be a tight arse. Spending money on dry cleaning would have probably saved the top. Another example of this is buying generic brand items that you know just aren't as good. I bought Aldi wraps last week (which I think are no good - one of the few Aldi 'fails' in my opinion) and they keep coming home in the lunch box. I should have spent the extra few dollars on the Mission brand ones.
• 2) Don't make decisions on a hangover! (See (1).) 
• 3) Borrowing items may sound like a frugal option, but consider what will happen if things go wrong. Other examples of this include ruining a friend's old phone that they lent you or crashing their car.

So next time I'll be recycling an out-of-date and season outfit, or hitting the opp shops for a new outfit. At a wedding no-one looks at what you are wearing anyway - all eyes are on the bride!