Magnificent Celebrity Art!

By Rosalyn Hoffman

In our book we spend a lot of time encouraging you to enjoy the Arts–whether you have a big budget, a small budget, or no budget at all.

We’re in SoCal for book events and went to the most magnificent art gallery opening with the friends who are putting up with us (nothing worse than a friend who arrives and stays plugged into Facebook and their own blog while visiting—sooo rude). We’re sharing this story today because while we extol so many of the  fringe benefits of getting cultured in Bitches on a Budget, we want to add yet another one to the list: you get to rub elbows with the stars. Yup, Saturday night we were perusing the pics elbow to elbow with Meryl Streep, Goldie Hawn, and Kurt Russell.  In fact, we are now lusting after a sculpture done by Meryl’s spouse Don Gummer.  Good thing it was already sold before we saw it (not that we were buying, but talk about an oversplurge to end all oversplurges). His work is MAGNIFICENT.

So, for all of you who have never done this, wake up and start looking for galleries to visit on opening night. Not only do you get to see new works (the good and the bad), but they invite you in and serve you bubbly and cheese and crackers. Besides, you never know who you’re going to run into.  Does Johnny Depp do art?

The Most Magnificent Boot This Season

By Rosalyn Hoffman

We are in love with boots this season.  While we live in an old pair of very comfy Frye cowboy boots, we have been obsessed with finding just the right new black boots.

We have been on the hunt all season and everywhere we’ve been it’s been our mission to stop and try on likely candidates: some have been too tall, some too short, some too wide, some too tight.  How could it be that in the year of the boot that not a single pair fit our bill?  So naturally we were jealous when we read in the Huffington Post that Michelle Obama just ordered a pair of Robert Clergerie from Paris [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/25/michelle-obama-ordered-th_n_370454.html]. Our all time favorite shoemaker making Mrs. O a custom pair of thigh-high boots.

We despaired of ever finding our own.
Imagine our delight when last week we were window shopping in NYC and found the most stunning, most simple, most magnificent over-the-knee black boot.  These were perfect.  Tall, lean, aristocratic.  At once soft, supple, hard, and stately.   Absolutely the sexiest article of clothing we have ever seen. Ever.

Stuart Weitzman “Hilo” Flat boots were made for us.

A Magnificent Thrifty Travel Splurge.

By Rosalyn Hoffman

We bitches just love a good oxymoron (no we’re not referring to your spouse or boyfriend) and a thrifty travel splurge fits the bill!

Give us any excuse and we’ll fold our body into coach for a fourteen-hour plane ride from the States to go to China.  We can’t wait to see what’s new. We can’t wait to see what’s old. After all, we’re just a footnote compared to thousands and thousands of years of Chinese history. Whether it was last year or last week that we walked down a street, each sentence begins in awed wonder “the last time I was here, it was different”.

The pace of change is breathtaking and a smart bitch will get in on the action before she misses what came before.Shanghai is second only to Paris and New York (tied) as our fave city in the world. And it’s one of the best places for all of us luxury-seeking, nearly broke bitches to stretch our dollars these days. We just stayed at the fabulous Hyatt on the Bund for next to nothing –the views from our room of the Huangpu River and Shanghai skyline would’ve had Fritz Lang weeping.We’re counting down the days until the release of our book, Bitches on a Budget (December 29th).

Since we’re such good sharers, in it we fill you in on all our secret haunts where we find magnificent treasures fit for an empress, all with our peasant’s purse.

Every Gal Needs Her Little Pleasures

By Rosalyn Hoffman

We gals at Bitches on a Budget.com are totally invested in spending our time searching for just the right products worth spending your hard earned cash on—so you don’t have to.  We’re always on the lookout for just the right splurge worthy things that give a girl pleasure by making her look and feel magnificent.

Unless you’re spending the day tucked in all cozy tight in your ‘jammies’, the success of your morning hair and make up routine set the stage for whether it’s going to be a good or a bad day. Nothing can darken your mood and ruin your day like too much frizz or an unruly cowlick.  And, what can make you more self-conscious than make-up that cakes, mascara that bleeds, lips that dry and blush that doesn’t?

We love to share. (After all, us bitches need to stick together.)  So here are a few of our favorite things: To tame our unruly manes we rely on boar bristle brushes and Phyto hair products.  We are crazy for Phytovolume Volumizer Shampoo with Yarrow Extract, Phytobaume conditioner with mallow. And, we would never, ever, start blowing (our hair) without first applying Phtyodefrisant Botanical Hair Relaxing Balm. We admit it.  We do have a little love affair thing going on with Phyto.  Please don’t get the wrong idea about us; we believe that monogamy is dead and proudly admit to a promiscuous nature when it comes to our make up tray.

Since everything in life starts with a great foundation, we start our day with Chanel Mat Lumiere base. To give our cheeks that rosy, in-from-the-cold, I’m-so-well-rested look we are mad for Benefit’s Benetint.  Mascara?  There is only one.  Blinc’s Kiss Me. Our latest lip dalliance is with Fresh Sugar Rose Tinted Lip Treatment. Just a sweet hint of color and it’s so, so moist and nourishing that we just can’t stop running our tongues over our lips in a most lascivious way that’s sure to get us into trouble.