Tugging at my purse strings and heart strings

With a pair of decent skates costing over $100 new and skating skirts starting at $30 (compared with $8 for a pair of ballet shoes and $10 for a leotard), buying and selling used skating clothes and equipment makes so much economic sense. The Pea and her brothers have only been taking lessons for 3 months, and even though she swears that she will never give skating up, I'm taking it with a grain of salt. That's why we went to a used skating clothes and equipment sale this weekend to check out what they had to offer. The Pea oohed and ahhed over some of the fancy costumes on sale, but was quite happy with the little blue velvet skating skirt we found at the sale for only $10.

Then we saw the skates. They were labelled "almost new", and looked pretty good. Even better, they were a great bargain -- new, these skates would have cost $140 and they were priced at $30. Best of all, The Pea did a few swizzles on the ice with them and said they felt really good.

Enter the Voice of Reason. $30 by itself is not too bad, but am I going down a slippery slope? She'll outgrow these and ask for another pair, the boys will want their own as well.. etc...etc...$$$$$. I had previously told her, no skates of her own until she had advanced a bit further in her lessons. I could have stuck to my guns. But I couldn't resist. I got them for her. She is over the moon with delight, so happy to have a pair of white skates that she doesn't care in the least that they are secondhand.

It was definitely an impulse buy, and I'm still not sure I should have done that. But she is so happy! Seeing her so happy makes me happy too, so truthfully, I bought them a little bit for me as well. And she looks so cute in her white skates and little velvet skirt.

I guess I wont' be buying those cute evening sandals I was eyeing, after all.