At first I thought the $9.99 price for Maybelline Colorsensational Lipstick at CVS was a mistake. I hadn’t bought that lipstick in a coon’s age or two, so I wouldn’t have been surprised to see the price take a bit of a jump, but not THAT high of a jump. When I found out the cost was indeed correct, it added to my growing sense that CVS’s prices have steadily been rising a lot more steeply than other discount stores.

Sure enough, a few days later I hit my local Rite Aid and the price for that exact same Maybelline Colorsensational Lipstick was $7.19. That’s 39% cheaper. Which meant CVS was making $2.80 above and BEYOND a normal mark-up. And they were making that off ME. And I would be losing $2.80, the price of a nice juicy melon or box of berries, every time I would be dumb enough to pay that higher price for a tube of lip color.

The story doesn’t end there. When I double-checked the oline lipstick prices at CVS, the price listed for that Maybelline lipstick suddenly turned out to be $8.79 – over a dollar cheaper than their in-store price.  It’s true some stores charge lower prices online than in-store but I couldn’t help wondering if that cheaper CVS online figure wasn’t conjured up more for the benefit of the Maybelline folks,who might not be exactly delighted with the exorbitant markup CVS was actually pulling in for their product.

It’s interesting though, that Rite Aid’s price for that Maybelline lipstick both online and in-store was the same $7.19. Which I think is always less confusing for customers.

If you’re wondering how CVS can get away with charging 39% more for a product than Rite Aid and why customers simply don’t desert them for the cheaper store, the answer may lie with their real estate. CVS stores are everywhere in New York and their locations are always prime spots near subway stops. The two nearest me are only blocks away, both on Lexington in the eighties, giving them a wide radius of buyers in every direction. Whereas the nearest Rite Aid is a bit of a hike much farther east. It’s a more out of the way location and  too much of a hike for customers pressed for time or unwilling to traipse those extra blocks.

Needless to say, it’s now my lipstick refill stop and, pending further research in price differential, my discount store for who knows how many more items.

Internships don’t usually come with position titles, so the ad on Craig’s List for an Intern – Gallery Photographer and PhotoShop Editor, caught my eye. The internship called for a student who owned and was an adept user of a DSLR camera with on-board flash. This pricey piece of equipment would have set any student back at least $600 to $3000 in the lower price range. Additionally, the job required good digital photo editing skills and the availability to work 8 to 12 hours a week for 8 weeks or more.

The intern’s job duties entailed photographing numerous antiques (with the intern’s OWN CAMERA), editing and retouching the photos, then uploading them to websites where the antiques were to be sold. Rather than assisting, the intern would essentially be doing the exact same work as a professional photographer, retoucher, editor and digital production team whose services could easily total many thousands of dollars for this kind of job. The intern, on the other hand, was to be paid the exultant sum of zip-zilch-nada. Actually it was more like MINUS zip-zilch-nada, since the employer made no mention of paying the intern’s expenses. Assuming the intern worked three days a week for 8 weeks, the transportation tab alone could total a minimum $120.00. Tack on the cost of camera batteries, memory cards and that intern was about to PAY up to $300 bucks for the privilege of saving that antique broker a huge hunk of money.

But hold on, you say, what about the professional experience the intern would receive? Along with the portfolio boost of published photos and online exposure to potential clients?  Yes, the ad also pointed out these advantages — along with words that are magic to a beginning photographer: “Full Photo Credit.” Curious, I visited the employer’s website and there — Among zillions of small, crowded photos of antiques — not a single photo credit was visible. Of course the employer hadn’t specified a “visible” photo credit, so a photo credit could certainly have been buried deep somewhere inside the text.

As to the style and quality of the photos — they appeared to be strictly low-end, catalog shots. The lighting in all the photos was identical and every antique was silhouetted against an identical white background. So not only would a photographer’s skill and style not be further developed on this job, they could easily be set back some.

Nor did any other of the usual advantages of internships — like networking and learning from experts in one’s field of interest — appear to apply here. Because the intern was going to be working pretty much alone, taking the photos and editing them (on a slow, cheap version of PhotoShop, it turned out, known to crash a lot), there would be few, if any, people to network with. And with no other photographer on the scene, let alone one with expert ability and experience, the intern would have no mentor to help sharpen photo skills.

From where I sit, it looked like this employer was taking advantage of a tight, super-competitive job and intern market. What do you think?

Before exploring the country’s lowest sales taxes, I always assumed New York was the primary sales tax monster, hitting us up for 8.875% sales tax* every time we New Yawkas made a purchase. But lo and behold, another state turns out to be an even bigger tax biter: the gentle state of Tennessee charges its southern citizens a whopping 9.41% combined state and local sales tax, the highest in the country.

Of the 20 lowest sales taxes in the U.S., the residents of five states are fortunate enough to be charged zero state sales tax. But of those five states, two charge local sales tax which leaves only three, Montana, New Hampshire and Oregon, with a combined state and local sales tax of absolutely zero. If you live in any of these three states and decide to purchase some new furniture for $3,000 bucks you will not have to tack on a penny for sales tax. But if you buy that same furniture in pricey Tennessee, you’ll have to cough up a whopping $282.30 to cover the sales tax bill. Quite a difference, especially if you’re on a super-tight budget, retired or thinking of furnishing an entire new home.

One reason why Alaska has a zero state sales tax rate (though it charges a local 2.15% sales tax) is Oil. Companies happily enrich the state coffers for the privilege of drilling for the stuff.

Combined State and Local Sales Tax Rates from Tax Foundation (September 2009)

1. 0%       Montana
2. 0%       New Hampshire
3. 0%       Oregon
4. 1.13%  Alaska
5. 1.92%  Delaware
6. 4.38%  Hawaii
7. 5.00%  Maine
8. 5.00%  Virginia
9. 5.38%  Wyoming
10. 5.42%  Wisconsin
11. 5.52%  South Dakota
12. 6.00%  Connecticut
13. 6.00%  Idaho
14. 6.00%  Kentucky
15. 6.00%  Maryland
16. 6.00%  Michigan
17. 6.00%  North Dakota
18. 6.00%  Vermont
19. 6.00%  West Virginia
20. 6.15%  Alabama

Check out Tax Foundation for the ranking of every state’s combined state and local sales tax rates.

* Includes 3/8% for the benefit of the Metropolitan Commuter Transportation District.

I’m not keen on celebrating New Year’s Eve in public places with raucous crowds, revelers determined to have a BIG night, dining room prices jacked up to the ceiling and food poorly prepared thanks to over-worked, over-steamed chefs. To this, add wobbly merrymakers weaving through the city on their way to getting blotto and it’s definitely not my idea of a fun way to start the New Year.

As for the New Year’s Resolution Bandwagon, I’ll give it a pass. I’m less than thrilled at being informed NOW is the time to sum up the past year. NOW is the time to set goals for the New Year. Who says? To me New Years Day and the next day are interchangeable. As are Valentine’s Day and Halloween and Ground Hog Day. The only difference between them is a date written on a calendar. So why make resolutions at the exact same time every year just because the community at large and a bunch of articles are saying it’s the time to do so. Why can’t resolutions be made any old time of the year?  If you’re living and thinking at your fullest every day, you’re probably making resolutions and setting goals left and right all along. Ideally I am.

Still, as we wave Sayonara to 2010, I happily sense positive vibrations rolling our way. For months the economy and the stock market have been bubbling northward, something we haven’t seen for quite awhile. Hopefully 2010 washed away the last of bad feelings about bleak, black 2008. We’re finally past all those tankers of red ink and sinking financial ships.  We’ve started peeking over the barricades, looking to see what’s coming up the road and maybe even thinking about loosening up our purse strings.

So bring on 2011. Don’t know about you, but after austerity’s extended gray stay with us, I’m ready to rumble. Aren’t you?

When I first moved to New York City I had a job at Harper’s Bazaar that paid a salary in the pitiful peanut range.  But thanks to miniscule living expenses, I had plenty of cash to splash around on eating out, weekend trips and all around fun stuff. I shared the rent on a two room, kitchen-in-the-living-room, fourth floor walk-up apartment with two, sometimes three, roommates in Greenwich Village.

So stoked was I about landing a plum job and finally moving to the big city that I slept every night without complaint on a rickety cot beneath a window with a wide open shade.  With the torpid heat that summer, we only pulled down the bedroom window shade when dressing.  We had no air conditioner and the coolest spots in the apartment were at the windows.  But sitting in a window seat facing the street had turned into a tricky proposition.  Directly across the street from us lived a pale, shadowy, hard-to-guess-age-guy who rarely left his small one room. Dressed in frowsy, shapeless old shorts, he always seemed to be fluttering around his windows so I thought of him as Moth-man. He had taken an acute interest in our apartment to the tune of flashing one of my roommates when she had been home alone. Not wanting a repeat performance in my memory bank, I rarely looked in his sleazy direction.

With everyone in the apartment now pretending he didn’t exist, the flasher, bereft of attention, started printing poster board signs with juvenile salutations and his phone number and flapping them in our direction. Still new to the city and all its dazzling enticements, my roommates and I barely noticed, rating him pretty much at the bottom of our interests.

That changed, however, when we arrived home one evening and discovered he had crossed the street, entered our locked lobby without a key and somehow got a note into our mailbox. On it was his name, phone number and a super-sleazo invitation to get together. Now having entered Creepy-land, we called the police. That night two amiable young detectives showed up and informed us that there was nothing they could do unless he was caught committing some unlawful act. As for the flashing — they needed witnesses for an arrest. Perhaps, they suggested he could be enticed into flashing while they were there. Our most outgoing roommate jumped right in and offered to stage the scene.  A few minutes later, she strolled into the bedroom and started opening drawers and removing clothes from the closet as though preparing to undress, leaving the shade wide open to give Moth-man an unobstructed view. With the detectives hiding below the windows, my other roommate and I checked Moth-man’s reaction out of the corners of our eyes. Though clearly interested, he made no move suggestive or otherwise. As a further enticement, the detective suggested our femme fatal remove her shirt. Which she did. Still no action from across the street. Then, for the first time that summer, as though somehow alerted the police were watching him, Moth-man suddenly pulled his window shades down.

On their way out, the detectives said they were going to pay him a quick visit on their way downtown. Conveniently for us, Moth-man hadn’t lowered his window shades all the way down so we had a ringside seat of his bare white legs nonchalantly walking across his room to answer the detective’s knock at his door.  Four trousered legs advanced into the room as Moth-man’s legs, stiff and tense, suddenly backed quickly away. We couldn’t see anyone’s face nor hear what the detectives were saying, but whatever they were saying was causing Moth-man’s movements to get jerkier and more agitated by the second.

A few minutes later the detective’s legs vanished from the room. Almost immediately the shades were slammed down all the way and the room went dark. The next day when we got home from work and looked across the street, Moth-man’s room was empty. We never saw him again.

Have you also had an offbeat first apartment situation?  I’d love to hear about it.

You can’t wash your hands with anything cheaper than bar soap. But ick – that slimy soap scum floating in the soap dish. If you’re a clean freak and get some kind of kick out of removing that scum on a daily basis, then okay – stick with your bar soap. If, however, household cleaning of any sort is something you endeavor to do as little as possible, consider instead washing your hands with an inexpensive – and much neater – alternative. Shampoo!

In place of far more costly liquid hand soap, I’ve been washing my hands with shampoo for years now. And if you buy 15 or 16 ounces of shampoo on sale for less than a dollar, as I always do, you’ll be paying less than half the price of liquid hand soap.

The other plus along with saving money is the great selection of fragrances. Partial to coconut, I also like aloe and almond. I was surprised to discover that shampoo is easy on the skin too. Normally I buy a moisturizing shampoo, both for my scalp and mitts. This seems to contain just enough moisturizer to keep my hands from drying out, yet not so much it leaves them feeling sticky.

Shampoo also appears to cleanse hands every bit as thoroughly as soap. And, living in New York City with its’ over the top energy and who knows how many strains of world class germs and oddball bacteria lurking on every block, bus and subway, I wash my hands a lot. So far, nothing I have heard or read contradicts shampoo’s effectiveness at removing these big city germs.

To those who claim washing hands with anti-bacterial soap is superior for removing bacteria, I’ve heard Dr. Oz (an Oprah favorite) claim that isn’t so. Our bodies are covered, he said, with good and bad bacteria and the anti-bacterial soap unfortunately removes all the good bacteria with the bad. And we need that good bacteria to constantly battle the bad.

So spritz some nice smelling shampoo into your hands and give it a lather. Your nose, good bacteria and piggy bank will thank you.

When I was a fashion illustrator, one of my models, looking as usual like a million bucks, told me that she usually shopped for clothes in thrift shops. With that knockout recommendation, I finally ventured into a Goodwill thrift store in my neighborhood, plucked a navy blue Christian Dior blazer with a $6.00 price tag off a jam packed clothes rack and silently yelled “WOW”!

Shown here are some of the goodies I have unearthed in thrift shops over the years — some brand new, some barely used:

• Bracelets fashioned of vary-colored twisted metals – more refined versions of bracelets I saw in African markets. $2.00 each.
• One of three different Portuguese hand painted dishes that hang on my kitchen wall. $3.00.
• White cotton shower curtain sprinkled with multi-colored flowers in original package. $4.00.
• A box of coasters From the Museum of Metropolitan Art – a steal at a tiny fraction of their original cost.

At neighborhood thrift shops I have also been lucky to find:

• A blazing red Bognor ski jacket that kept me toasty warm against the iciest winds on walks around the reservoir. $8.00.
• Glass candlesticks embedded with hand blown teardrops: $6.00 each.
• A lush, black cashmere tunic cardigan $8.00.
• A weightless Natori caftan, perfect for travel. $6.00.
• Designer silk scarves for a fraction of their original cost.
• A Kenneth J. Lane gold and enamel bracelet for a few dollars.
• And most recently an Armani jacket for a big splurge of $25.
• Plus a zillion books and music CD’s and movie cassettes. Each costing a greenback or two.

Also a fan of thrifts, my sister made a great catch recently. Spotting a dull, blackened bracelet in a pile of costume jewelry, she looked on the inside and found the silver mark, “72.5” that she suspected might be there. It meant the bracelet contained 72.5% of silver. Once the ancient tarnish was removed, she had a glowing silver bracelet for the princely sum of $1.00.

I usually come up with my biggest hauls on Thursday and Friday nights, before the weekend hoards gallop in. And gallop in they do. These are the no-fooling-around Saturday-day-off-from-work shoppers determined to wrestle fashionable wardrobe bargains from their working sisters.

If you’re furnishing your first home or apartment on a budget, be sure to check out the thrifts before dropping your cash at full price stores. You may hit the jackpot with needed kitchenware, furniture, rugs, prints and posters and small appliances.

Keep in mind that not all visits will be successful. Sometimes you’ll walk away with a basket full of bargain goodies and sometimes you may not spot a single thing of interest. Thrifts feature an enormous variety of stuff to zip through, with quality ranging from dreary to dreamy. You need a speedy search technique to cover everything. Not places to linger, thrifts are places to zip in and zip out, hopefully carrying away some exciting gems found hidden in the jumble.

Let’s say your wallet contains a meager collection of moola. And you live in a smallish apartment or house that others call “cozy”. Or you have limited storage space—as in zero. And you need to store some items that absolutely cannot be squeezed into already jam packed cabinets, shelves, closets, under-bed-spaces and every other possible nook and cranny. Forget storage containers. Not enough floor space. Forget additional shelves. Not enough wall space. Forget cartons. Too depressing–plus too Collyer brothers (if you don’t know who they are and you’re a bona fide member of the pack-rat kingdom, better read up on them before it’s too late).

Enter king size bags…Not the gray plastic, bursting at the seams variety rolled around in shopping carts by the homeless. And not the big brown kind toted home with groceries. No, I’m talking about large, king size gift bags–bags constructed of strong, heavy weight paper in graphic patterns and fresh colors.

The large gift bag I have in my bathroom contains bottles, extra combs, toothbrushes, toiletry travel containers, surplus cosmetics and items I’m not too thrilled to have on display. It fits perfectly into a narrow little corner floor space that could have been designed for it. With its clean, upbeat design, it visually lights up that area. For practicality and a neat look, I snipped off the carrying cords and closed the bag top with clips.

My kitchen gift bag (containing a super duper size package of paper napkins, paper plates and cups) is filled to overflowing, but since it’s on top of a tall cabinet, no one can see all the items jammed inside and sticking out the top. Sandwiched between the wall and glass jars, not enough of the bag is visible to make it particularly noticeable.

I found these gift bags at the dollar store. At a buck a shot for a storage container, they are a great buy. And they’re practical too. Their glossy, heavy weight surfaces make them easy to dust and wipe with damp cloths. And when they wear out, all it takes is a single dollar to cart home another change of pace design.

The strong graphic designs that I prefer seem to be produced mostly in China. With so many of that country’s factories closing left and right these days, especially the ones catering to overseas exports, I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the manufacturers producing these tough, good looking bags keep on humming.

More inexpensive storage ideas: Straw Basket Storage in the Bathroom. And another great Dollar Store find: Cape Cod Memories in a Dollar Jar.