Posts tagged ‘shopping’
My Inspiration for Sex and the Zen of Shopping: Live Rich by Shopping Smart
Sex and the Zen of Shopping author Sandra Gore Nielsen with bargain purchases: BCBG pants $11, Victor Costa jacket $25, Nine West knee-high faux python boots $30, Chinese vases $10
I’ve been shopping in exotic places most of my adult life. But what used to be just a fun and adventurous addition to “normal” shopping turned to necessity when our world suffered a financial meltdown. It’s the same story being told over and over again by hard-working, smart people who carefully researched their investments and never considered themselves wild speculators. We were lied to and we got robbed.
But we were “lucky” to sell a furnished high rise condo in Las Vegas with only a $90,000 loss. We made it out on the beginning of the slide, but before the fall over the precipice. We rented a 1,000 sqft condo, moving in with clothes, coffee table, kitchenware, artwork and air mattress.
With a budget of $2500, I furnished the condo in style and comfort. I was surprised that everyone didn’t know how to do that. I was more surprised there are people who think buying “used” or “discount” is beneath them. I suspect those numbers are dwindling. Reality is that we all have to change the way we live.
“Why not write a book about surviving the economy in the style we deserve?” In fact, the first working title was “Surviving in Style” because that is exactly what I feel I’m doing – surviving. My Saturday mornings were spent on shopping safari’s with my shopping sister Esperanza, always with a strict budget and always coming home exhilarated. I felt especially poor one weekend and took only $15 to the Swap to return with a silk kimono, silk peignoir and a flat of fresh, ripe mangoes.
I began to carry my camera. I wrote my ideas, not only about what you could find where, but about the mindset to let go of inhibitions and hang-ups –to get over yourself! Sex and Zen of Shopping: Live Rich by Shopping Smart grew from a hope that I could help others, that I could share a fun (and practical) alternative to feeling down and broke. That’s not a state that I enjoy and don’t think is a place anyone should ever be. I do sincerely hope that Sex and Zen can help you live rich, look good, have fun and be happy.
New cover for Sex and Zen shopping book
S. L. Gore 
It took a while for Sex and Zen of Shopping to get discovered
It took a while to for my shopping book to get discovered, but my spam folder is filling up fast! Lots of links to handbags and other shopping stuff – and of course sex. Should be no surprise there. That’s what you get when you title a book “Sex and the Zen of Shopping.”
Funny I’m not getting any links or offers or comments about Zen. Guess the more highly evolved spiritual creatures in our universe aren’t trolling the internet.
Maybe I should have stuck with “Shop Smart in a Dumb Economy” which was the original working title. But I had an agent tell me in quite a serious advice letter that I should drop that title because “this whole recession thing will be over in a year.” That was in…let me see now…2009?
It just goes to show how wrong agents can be. So cheer up authors. Those guys are not always right. What do they know anyway? Wonder if he’s still in business?
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January 19, 2012 at 3:56 am 2 comments