April 30, 2013

Jamaica land we love

I am born & grown in Kingston, Jamaica. I love my country and sometimes, I have to admit, I take it for granted. I have never lived elsewhere but I have travelled to several countries and I must say it makes me appreciate this little piece of rock even more- the culture, the music, the natural beauty, etc.

My mother is visiting from the US. So we went to Montego Bay for the weekend (we call it country but to the people of Montego Bay, they don't consider themselves country as it's the 2nd city. To us Kingstonians though, anywhere outside of Kingston is country :p).

I took a few pictures and just wanted to share them with you all.

Beach at the end of 'Bottom Road' - some people call it Sunset Beach & some call it Carlisle Beach. It's in front of Sandals Carlisle. Free public beach, no fish though but there are people that sell snacks.

Crystal clear water ^_^



View from Mango Walk, so relaxing....
XOXO
Ronz


April 23, 2013

I'm blue, da ba de, da ba die

"I'm blue, da ba de, da ba die...." like the song.

Jacket: Forever 21 US$15.99 (sale)
Shoes: Mootsies Tooties via 6pm.com US$25.99
Skirt: (made by seamstress) US$10
Inner Blouse: Agaci US$3.99
Total: US$55.97

Closer look at the shoes :)


XOXO
Ronz

My favourite words- SALE & CLEARANCE ^_^

Scoring a deal give me such a rush. I love the show Extreme Couponers on TLC. I swear if I was in the US I'd be couponing and working on building my stock pile. But I live in Jamaica and we don't really offer coupons here or I should say that the coupons are not valid here.

Anyhoo on to my favourite words. I hate buying anything full price (that's the real F word) unless I absolutely love it. Now I live within my means so scoring a deal makes me maximize my budget and I can get more for my buck essentially. When I go shopping I browse around but what I'm really looking for is the Sale or Clearance rack. I especially love these sections in the winter time in the US as the more 'summery' stuff are on sale. :). I live in Jamaica so I don't wear winter clothing.

I hate paying over US$25 for any one item. Cheap you may say but as mentioned before I live within my means. Also how I rationalize it is if I spend US$ 100 I can get at least 4 items. Also why I use that as my benchmark is because I live in Jamaica and to buy US$1 right now it costs about J$100. Now that's a lot for us here, well for me anyway. The exchange rate is flying and we import a lot of US products as a country and so everything is going up (aka inflation) as merchants pass the costs on to us consumers.

My favourite stores to go to (when I go to NYC or FLL) and to browse online are:

 - 6pm.com  
- Charlotte Russe (online also)  
- Forever 21 (online also)  
- Gap Outlet (Sawgrass Mills, FLL)  
- TJ Maxx  
- Burlington  
-Marshalls  
-Ross

NB. TJ Maxx, Burlington, Marshalls, Ross are great for shoes, I wish they were online.


 I sign up for notifications from a lot of other sites also but will leave that for another post. Another little tid bit is for stores like TJ Maxx is to go to the neighbourhoods that don't have a lot of your ethnic group. How do I say this in a politically correct way?..... ok so if you're Black/African American and our shoe sizes tend to be bigger size 8 or 9 or 10 then if you shop in a neighbourhood where there are predominantly Black/African American then the shoes size you wear more than likely will be sold out and a lot of smaller sizes in the styles you like are left. Now go to a neighbourhood where it isn't mostly Black/African American and you increase your probability of finding all the nice styles in your size. How did I do? Was that PC? 

The biggest satisfaction is scoring a deal and looking like you spent a lot of money. Some people even think I'm rich because of how I dress and the amount of shoes I have. Trust me I'm not, I wish I was but I'm faking it until I can make it ^_^. Again you don't have to spend a lot of money to look like you did......I will have on a US$10 shoe and you wouldn't know it unless I told you because I don't wear it like it cost US$10. Now it's maybe valued at US$70 and that's how I wear it. It's how you carry yourself also.

Now these shoes I bought for US$11.99.  Now I can't remember how much they cost originally, maybe US$30 and it's no longer on the Forever 21 site, but score!!!!!









Shoes: Forever 21 US$11.99 (sale)
Coral Skirt: Burlington US$19.99
Jacket: Forever 21 US$15.99 (sale)
Inner blouse: Agaci US$3.99

Total outfit US$51.96
 ^_^ score!!!!


XOXO
Ronz





April 21, 2013

Hello everyone ^_^

Hello everyone, 

This is my first blog post!!!!. 

I'm so excited. This is something I've been wanting to do for a while now. I hope I can fix this blog up to look how I want it to and for it to serve the purpose I want it to. 

So on to that, what is the purpose of this blog? I want to show that one does not have to have a lot of money to look good, hence the term frugalista. Also to spread the message that you are not shallow for wanting to look good. I have several purposes now that I think of it but basically I want to share my world with the world - lol.

I did art in high school and wanted to pursue a career in art. However in Jamaica, it's hard to be a successful artist so I did business subjects as my "back up plan". I've been working in the financial industry for the last 8 years, as I got my Bachelors Degree in Finance & International Business. However I have never forgotten my love for creating & doing something artsy. My dream job is to be a stylist or do something in fashion that pays well like be a buyer or something. Can you imagine being paid to shop and travelling and such? 


One of my philosophies is if I don't feel good I must at least TRY to look good ('try' being the operative word).

I LOVE fashion and I'm a shoeaholic (there I admit it :)). I have a passion for fashion!



I will be sharing other things I'm interested in and other happenings but at the heart of it all will be my love for the arts & by extension fashion.

XOXO 
Ronz