Say hello to Sirius! Yes, named after Sirius Black from Harry Potter. No, I am not ashamed that I name inanimate objects after Harry Potter characters. (my car is named Hugo and my purple Marc Jacobs is Arnold; those are more obscure Potter related names though)

Sirius! And my ever expanding inspiration board

Well...I finally got it!  I bought my Chanel 2.55 Classic Flap! I am not going to make it a habit of buying expensive pieces but this is a classic item that I have wanted for years and it will last forever. I know that some people would say buying a Chanel bag for $3000 is against the mission of my blog, which is dressing on a budget.  But it actually isn't, I have been slowly saving for this bag for 2 years, it was part of my budget to put away a certain amount of money for each paycheck.  If I had just splurged on this out of the blue then THAT would be against my blog.  The point is, if you want something expensive you need to plan out your money situation, decide when you want to buy it  and then figure out how much money you need to save per week/month in order to buy it in that time frame.  OR another idea is you can have an "emergency clothes fund" where you save some money in case of an amazing sale or item that is selling out fast.  This way you aren't taking money out of your food and living essentials budget.

Bags: Marc by Marc Jacobs (Net-a-Porter gift card), Ralph Lauren (Christmas gift), Chanel

If you remember from the end of last month I had finally saved enough to buy a Chanel but struck out TWICE in the same day. I won't retell the story but you can read it in this post. On February 1st I was checking out Madison Avenue Couture, the store that had a Chanel sale on Rue La La, to see if they had any Chanel bags in stock.  They showed a bunch on the site but most were already sold and hadn't been deleted from the site yet. But then I found it, a Chanel 2.55 in black lambskin with gold hardware...exactly what I was looking for! So I ordered it and proceeded to freak out about how much money I had just spent.

My actual bag, photographed by Madison Avenue Couture

The next day they called me to tell me they had already sold the purse I bought and hadn't marked it as sold on the site yet, but they had the same exact purse that I bought except it was 4 years newer than mine and subsequently $400 more expensive.  They offered that to me and to make up for the mistake they didn't charge the extra $400.  Before I accepted I wanted to double check the authenticity of the bag with PurseForum so I asked Madison Avenue Couture for some images of the purse so I could post on the forum. They happily obliged and by the end of the day the girls of the PurseForum confirmed it was authentic! So I emailed them back letting them know I would take the different purse and waited in agony for it to come. It finally arrived on Saturday and I couldn't be happier!

My actual bag, photographed by Madison Avenue Couture

Madison Avenue Couture carries many high end designers and they have a 100% authenticity guarantee and make sure everything they sell is authentic.  Most of the items are pre-owned but some are brand new as well. I would definitely recommend them to anyone looking for cheaper designer items, they are obviously still expensive but cheaper than buying new, full-priced items.  They also have amazing customer service and want to make sure you're happy with your purchase.

*I was not paid or asked to write this post about Madison Avenue Couture, I just wanted to share my satisfaction with my readers to let them know about my experience.