The New Romantic

You have champagne taste and a beer budget, and you've turned the gap into an art form. You know which sample sale happens when. You have alerts set for specific vintage pieces. Your apartment looks like it cost three times what it did, and you take quiet pride in that.

You believe beauty is a daily essential, not a special-occasion splurge. You will find the second-best version of the perfect thing, and make it look like the first.

The watch-out: the hunt can become the point. Sometimes the thing you want is just the thing you want — and waiting six months to save $40 costs you six months of enjoying it. Occasionally, just buy it.