When we think of Eco-friendly products and fashion, we might associate them with higher price points, earthy colors, and recycled old items. Fortunately, times have changed and eco-friendly has never looked so good. For those fashion conscious and financially savvy shoppers who struggle with being an eco-friendly consumer, you now have more options to select from. As a financially smart woman, I love to accessories without wiping out my life savings. When I purchase a luxury good, I make sure I treat it like an investment.
Here are the 3 rules I follow when deciding if I should commit to a purchase, also referred to as my “to buy or not to buy” guidelines:
1) Quality- it must be durable and long lasting. I would never want to invest my money in a company that I believed lacked quality and wouldn’t be around in the long run, so why would I invest in products that won’t last a long time?!!!
2) ROI- for all you financially conscious people, I believe the ROI (return on investment) has to be attractive. If it’s not something I would be excited about using, it will be a waste of money & resources. It must be stylish, unique and universal so that I will get a lot of use out of it.
3) Eco-friendly- Lastly, I want to put my money where my mouth is, (not literally… metaphorically speaking). I believe in eating natural or organic foods, using environmentally friendly cleaning supplies, using an eco-friendly car to minimize my carbon footprint. After all, don’t we want our children and grandchildren to live in a world where there will be clean air to breathe and clean water to drink? So I prefer being a socially and environmentally conscious consumer. I may pay a little more at times, but the idea is that I will save a lot more in the long term by being healthier and happier. Just like a 401k or any other type of retirement plan, the ideas to start saving when you are younger so that you will have more during your golden years (“compounding effect” is a very good thing).
I recently applied the “to buy or not to buy” rules when I was shopping for a purse. I was beyond thrilled with the options I found at Maggie Bags (www.maggiebags.net). I now own a unique, stylish, gorgeous and durable Maggie Bag called the “Butterfly Bag” along with a matching wallet. The bag and the wallet were both priced brilliantly and are super eco-friendly! It’s big enough to hold my laptop, it’s classy and chic enough to wear on a date, and it’s also universal in that you can take it with you to yoga. These bags are made out of seatbelts and according to their website, Maggie Bags is committed to using genuine repurposed seatbelt webbing in all their products. Another impressive fact about this company is that Maggie Bags keeps its carbon footprint low when creating these beautiful bags. They are proud that the construction of their handbags consists of a “simple cut and sew process”. They’ve stated on their website “this helps to minimize the environmental impact of manufacturing new materials and eliminates the need for typical recycling processes that consume large amounts of energy and other resources”.
Besides the fact Maggie Bags has fulfilled all 3 of my luxury investment rules, they also have excellent customer service. They are super friendly, helpful and provide great advice over the phone. The company clearly hires the best and does not outsource their customer service to a person who has never held one of their bags. The lady that helped me owned a few of the bags herself and she was able to help me pick the perfect one based on what I was looking for. I’ve heard their parent company will be launching a new brand later this year that is focused on using all sorts of recycled materials (not just webbing).
Maggie Bags has offered a 15% discount code for their Maggie Bags Premier Line, which is good until December 31st, 2013.
Discount Code: DISC15 (This code is case-sensitive)
Check them out on social media:
• Blog
http://maggiebags.net/blogs/maggie-bags-blog-1
• Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/MaggieBags
• Facebook
https://twitter.com/Maggie_Bags
• Pinterest
http://pinterest.com/maggiebags/
• Polyvore
http://maggiebags.polyvore.com
• Google Plus
https://plus.google.com/108696350118785461755/posts
Comments