Saving This For Later

'Tis the season for storage, utilities, fresh starts and fresh sheets

Happy New Year to all! Hope you are sliding into 2024 like goose fat into fluffed-up potatoes. Too soon to talk of festive gastronomic delights? Potentially. This time of year is no fun for us sybarites as everyone goes cold turkey on something. It’s also no time to bang on about buying things as a good portion of you may very well be going cold turkey on the ‘ol spending. So, this week, I will keeping things to the more essential side of retail and leaning into… utility. Cabin suitcases, shallow chests of drawers and discounted bedlinen.  I find this stuff insanely sexy, but I will acknowledge it’s probably not what anyone else means by retail therapy. If your debit card is in the freezer, save number one and two for later and refer back to number three for a guide to the prices you can expect in the sales when you’re ready to de-ice the plastic.

1.           Hardshell Carry-On Suitcase

I feel like this is some kind of Venn diagram with the central sector labelled ‘Holy Grail’. Luggage is essential if you plan to sleep anywhere other than your home, which is probably why so much of it is cripplingly expensive. A cabin style case on wheels is my choice for 1-7 nights unless I need to be impressively chic at my destination. I stuff my carry-on so tight that it feels like the densest matter on this earth. Because I try and travel ‘light’ (this does not mean light in weight) and hate checking a suitcase in, I am invested in potential packing space and weight for the maximum cabin volume.  Obviously, it also has to look good, be great value and last practically forever. This is where the Holy Grail bit comes in.