Katie Haller, Author at Thrifty Wife Happy Life

Feeling Confident with a Transitional Spring Outfit

February 25, 2019 by Katie Haller

For today’s outfit post I wanted to talk about something a little more than just my outfit. Today I’m talking about confidence. This is something that I’ve always struggled with. I’ve always been a pretty shy person and I haven’t always felt very confident in myself. Sometimes I let my lack of self-confidence take over and I don’t try new things.

When I first started my blog, I didn’t really feel confident about it. For me, taking pictures of myself was out of the question, but I still wanted to share my outfits. I did my best to hide my face in all my photos. It wasn’t until I was a few years into my blog that my mom said to me “I really love your blog, but I wish you would share your pretty face more often.” Of course, she said that she’s my mom. I told her that it wasn’t about me, it’s about my outfits. My brother-in-law also commented about it too. He asked why I always cut off my head in all my pictures. The more people started to ask me these questions, the more I started to question why I didn’t want to share my face. It wasn’t just about the outfit, I just didn’t feel confident enough to show myself.

I am still not completely comfortable with taking pictures of myself. I feel silly doing it. I try to take all my photos in the privacy of my yard. I don’t even like to have my husband take my pictures because I’m too embarrassed. But the thing is, I love sharing my outfits. I love having this blog. That’s why I take a big step out of my comfort zone to try to make my blog better. I figured that I’m probably the only one seeing all my flaws. I highly doubt that people are as critical as I am of myself (at least I hope not).

So with that said, today I’m sharing an outfit that makes me feel confident wearing. Even though my pictures are not perfect and my head is down in most of the pictures, because that’s what I’m more comfortable doing, I’m still going to share my post. Having this blog has helped me gain more confidence in myself and in my wardrobe than I ever thought it could. I’m sure a lot of you can relate to me. If that’s the case, don’t let your insecurities or lack of confidence stop you from doing something you love. You might not be the best, but if it brings you joy, then do it!

In today’s look, I’m sharing a transitional spring outfit. With March around the corner, I pulled out my green cami to wear under my grey cardigan I’ve been wearing all winter. (See other posts HERE and HERE) Mixing winter clothes and summer clothes is a great way to pull off a transitional spring outfit. I bought these black jeans at Target last month and I’m loving them. I love that they are high waisted and they fit great. They are only $15, (HERE) so I highly recommend checking them out if you are in need of a pair of black jeans. For shoes, my cut out booties makes for the perfect transitional bootie. I love peep toe and cut out booties during the transitional seasons. Scroll down to shop my look!

*This post contains affiliate links, which means by clicking on and/or making a purchase through a link, I will earn a commission for this blog. Thank you for your support.

Shop my closet

Top- Abercrombie (exact, similar)
Cardigan- Target (similar, similar, similar)
Pants- Target (exact, similar)
Shoes- Zappos (exact, similar)
Purse- Last Call Neiman Marcus (similar, similar)
Necklace- Nordstrom (exact)

Easy Outfit Combination- Black + Denim + Leopard

February 21, 2019 by Katie Haller

Black jeans, denim shirt and leopard print

Today I’m talking about one of the easiest outfit combinations ever! All you need is something black, something denim and sometimes leopard. This is one of my go-to looks when I want to feel stylish and feel confident in my outfit. It can be done with pants, dresses, skirts, shorts… really anything. Today I’m sharing 2 looks wearing the same base clothes (top and bottom). My top is a chambray shirt and my bottoms are a pair of high wasted black jeans. One look is for the day and the other is for the night.

Look #1- Day look

For this look, I accessorized with my leopard loafers and a black satchel purse. The larger purse and the flat shoes make the outfit a little more casual and more appropriate for the day. It’s perfect for wearing anywhere. It could be worn for work or if you want to look a little more put together while you run errands. I always love a good pair of leopard print shoes. They can really make any look pop!

Look #2- Evening look

All I did to make this look more appropriate for the evening was switch out the flats for a pair of heels and the satchel purse for a leopard clutch. This is a look I would wear if I was going out with friends in the evening or a date night with my husband. It’s a very simple way to turn your day look into an evening look.

Like I said, this combination is so simple and you can wear it in so many other ways. It doesn’t take many pieces to complete it. My biggest tip for putting together this combination is to keep it simple. Don’t over-accessorize. The leopard gives the look a big enough statement, so you don’t want to over-accessorize. Also don’t mix your leopard. I find that all you need is one leopard print accessory. Mixing different leopard prints would just be too busy.

For more ideas on how to style black, denim and leopard, you can check out my older posts (HERE, HERE, HERE)

Shop my closet

Pants- Target (exact, similar, similar, similar)

Top- Target (similar, similar)

Satchel Purse- Last Call Neiman Marcus (similar, similar)

Clutch- ThredUp (similar, similar)

Pumps- Target (similar)

Loafers- Lulu’s (similar, similar)

Watch- Nordstrom Rack (similar)

Necklace- Nordstrom (exact)

Earrings- Etsy (exact)

Sunglasses- Glassesshop.com (similar)

Flare Jeans- Yes or No??

February 18, 2019 by Katie Haller

The last couple of times that I cleaned out my closet, I’ve been debating if my flare jeans were worth keeping. I haven’t worn my flairs in years. This style of jeans got me through my middle school, high school, college years, and most of my early 20’s. It’s hard for me to say that the flair style is completely dead. I see people pull off flair jeans all the time, but for some reason, I feel like I’m not stylish enough to pull them off still.

I decided that the only way to truly decided if flare jeans still brought me joy was to put together a cute outfit wearing them and have a little photoshoot. That’s just what I did. My favorite pair of flare jeans are a pair of Express jeans that I bought years ago. These jeans take me back to 2008. I remember them well because I wore them out many times to the bar in college. I decided to try to style them for 2019, so I wore my ruffled striped top with them. For shoes, I always enjoyed a good pair of heels with my flares. I’m only 5’1, so I always need to add a little height when I can. I decided to try out my strappy sandals. I accessorized it with my leopard clutch and my pink pendant necklace. I feel like this look is cute for a night out with friends or a date night with the husband.

So after having a fun little photo shoot in this outfit, I’ve decided that I’m going to hold on to this pair of flare jeans. I will say that I did get rid of the rest of my flares. If you have one nice pair of flares, I’d say keep them, but from what I found out from my polls on Instagram is that most of you guys are not into the flare style anymore. So are they a completely dead style? I don’t think so, plus everything comes back around. That’s why I say if you have one nice pair still in your closet you should hold onto them, at least for a little longer.

Shop my closet

Jeans- Express (Similar, Similar, Similar)
Top- Shein (Exact)
Shoes- ThredUp (Similar)
Purse-ThredUp (Similar, Similar)
Necklace- Nordstrom Rack (Exact)
Sunglasses- Glassesshop (Similar)

Tips for Organizing your House on a Budget

February 14, 2019 by Katie Haller

Organizing is something that I have always really enjoyed doing. It always feels so good to declutter and have a place for everything. The only problem for me is that sometimes life happens and it gets hard to keep up with it all. I’ve recently been watching Tidying Up with Marie Kondo on Netflix, just like everyone else in the world right now and I’m loving it! I’ve never had time to read her books, but I’ve heard so many great things. Now that I’ve actually taken the time to learn more about the KonMari method I became so motivated to start organizing my house.

We moved into our current house 2 years ago, right before Jack’s first birthday. We wanted a house with more space because we quickly outgrew our 2 bedroom condo after having Jack. Our house is a decent size home, with lots of open space for Jack to play, but it’s not always very functional for space. The house makes no sense with its layout, but it is a rental house and sometimes you just need to work with the space you have. We are planning on moving out of this house this spring, so in order to make the packing processes less overwhelming for me, I figured that it would be the perfect time to purge and go through all my cabinets, drawers and closets to make sure everything had a place.

Today I want to take you through my organizing processes to give you some ideas and tips for your own house. Most of all, I hope to share some affordable ways to organize. Some people think that you might need to run out and buy some amazing organizing products at the Container Store, but you don’t. Sometimes all you need are some old boxes and a few baskets, even Marie Kondo approves of that.

*This post contains affiliate links, which means by clicking on and/or making a purchase through a link, I will earn a commission for this blog. Thank you for your support!

Kitchen
So let’s start in the Kitchen. The kitchen is hard for me because it’s the never-ending room. It constantly needs to be cleaned and organized. What drives me crazy in my kitchen is all the plastic Tupperware and sippy cups. I’m pretty sure everyone can agree that they hate storing Tupperware. It’s never pretty. I came up with a system when we moved into this house that works for me. I use 2 large baskets (HERE) and 2 deeper baskets with handles (HERE) that I bought both at the Dollar Tree. I keep all the containers in the big baskets and all the lids in the baskets with the handles. Round containers are on the left and rectangle and square containers are on the right. This system works greats. I also store all my sippy cups in a basket in the other cabinet.

One of the best things that I ever did in organizing my kitchen was buying baskets for my pantry (HERE). My current pantry is deep, which I’m not a fan of, because food can get lost in the back. The baskets help me section out my food into categories. It makes it so much easier to find everything I need. At the bottom of the pantry, I use beer boxes to store my recyclable bags and lunch boxes.

Linen Closet
Next up is my linen closet. I have a very small linen closet at this house. It is basically a bunch of cabinets in the hallway. It’s hard to cram in all my extra bedding and towels into it. Before, I was just folding up everything and cramming it into the space. Now I have added baskets to my closet to help organize hand towels, pillowcases, cleaning rags, cleaning supplies and baby towels. I was able to fold my blankets up to fit perfectly, (not perfect like Marie Kondo, but I tried). I also used the KonMari method to fold my bath towels. The thing I like about my linen closet now is that I can see everything and I have so much extra space.

Linen closet organizing ideas- Before and After

Master bedroom
My husband is super organized and is pretty much a minimalist, so I never have to worry about keeping him tidy (besides leaving empty water bottles all over the nightstand). I feel like I’m the one with all the “stuff” in my room. I have a nice big walk-in closet that I try to keep most of my things in, but I have 2 dressers and a nightstand that often start to overflow. I prefer to hang most of my clothes in my closet so I can see them all. My clothes are always getting buried in my drawers and then I completely forget about what I have, especially in my socks and underwear drawers. I love the KonMari method of folding, so I folded all the clothes in my dressers so I could see each item. I also got rid of a lot of old t-shirts and tank tops that hadn’t been worn in years. I have been hoarding a bunch of boxes from all my sponsored blog posts over the last year in my closet, so I was happy that some of those could come in handy for my underwear, socks, and bras. One thing I really love about Marie Kondo is that she teaches people to use what they have for storage. She says to use what you have first before you buy anything new. Old boxes make for great organizing tools.

Top- Underwear and socks || Middle- T-shirts || Bottom- Tank tops

My nightstand drawer is always a hot mess. I just added a couple long baskets (HERE) from the Dollar Tree for my pens and random phone chargers. I also left space for my journals. My bathroom drawers are similar. The baskets just help keep it from turning into a big mess.

Toddler Room
Jack’s room is actually my favorite room in our house. It has 2 big windows that let in lots of light and has a vaulted ceiling. It’s the perfect room for a nursery. The older Jack gets though, the harder it is to keep up with him and his mess. He wants to play with everything. That’s why I had to drop him off at school on my day off work just so I could go through his stuff without him freaking out. Getting rid of baby things is hard for me because I am still hoping for one more, but I realized when it comes to clothes, I’m not going to want to keep everything. A lot of his baby clothes were in really bad shape. I had to ask myself “will this bring me joy to see it on another baby?” If it had stains on it, I said no. I only kept the clothes that were in really good shape and something special. I folded up everything and stored it in a plastic storage bin from Target (HERE).

In Jack’s closet, his stuff was pretty messy. At one point I had his closet organized, but now it was just a mess. I added a couple baskets, eliminated the diaper boxes with old clothes in them and folded up his blankets nicely, and now everything fits so nicely. In his dresser, I folded his clothes like mine. The rest of Jack’s toys are in his play area in the living room. We use an organizer (HERE) to store all his toys and for all the miscellaneous toys my husband just throws them all into his old Pack n Play. It’s not pretty, but it does the job for now.

Before

After

Now that I’ve reorganized my house, I feel ready to take on the year. I know that it’s going to help when we have to pack up. It feels so good to purge and have a place for everything. If you haven’t watched Marie Kondo’s show yet, I highly recommend it. Have you purged and re-organized your house this year yet? I’d love to hear your stories!!

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My Baby is 3!!

February 11, 2019 by Katie Haller

I can’t believe that I have a 3-year-old. How did that happen? This year it’s really hitting me that I don’t have a little baby anymore. It really goes by too fast. I feel like the first year I barely remember and then the second year flew by too fast. This past year was definitely the year of the terrible twos. Luckily it’s also been filled with lots of memories that I can look back on and truly appreciate. Jack has really grown into his own little person in the last 12 months. As a first-time parent it’s finally clicking that I need to just stress less and soak in all these days with him while he’s little like this.

There are so many things that I want to remember about Jack right now. He is so full of life. He is always acting something out in his head. I love the way he says “Thank you, mommy, you’re welcome” or “Hello boys and girls” or “hey what’s going on here”. He has so many cute catchphrases that he says right now. He’s really getting good at talking, which makes it a little easier at times. He’s a very sweet little boy. As active as he is, he always stops to give me a hug and a kiss. He’s still a pretty big mommy’s boy. He’s always with me and he watches everything I do, which he sometimes acts out.

Jack has been loving his school this last year. Last year he made the big move from the infant room to the toddler room and it took him a while to adjust, but now he runs the class. He loves learning. His teachers tell me that circle time is his favorite time of the day. He has a photographic memory and if you tell him something once, he remembers it. He’s known the entire alphabet since he was 18 months old. People are always impressed and they ask me what we did to teach him. I tell them YouTube kids. He just memorized the letters from watching videos, plus he has a lot of letter puzzles and letter toys to play with.

Taking pictures with a letter board and a letter obsessed child does not work.

There are still a lot of challenges with Jack. His tantrums are becoming less often, but when he has them now, they are much more intense. I’ve been a lot more patient with him lately because he has more words and can actually tell me what he wants now. I’ve been using a lot of the techniques that I use at work with my preschool children and he’s been responding pretty well to it. All my training in Positive Behavior Support is really paying off. It still is hard for me though. Jack is extremely stubborn and a little OCD. Things have to go just perfectly and if they don’t, he has a complete meltdown and we have to repeat everything from the beginning. One morning he had a meltdown because all week long I wore my blue winter coat to work, and on Friday it was a little warmer outside, so I wore a different coat. He threw himself down on the ground and I had to carry him to the car kicking and screaming. He cried all the way to school. All because I wasn’t wearing my blue coat. Nighttime is when I lose my temper the most with him because he fights me on bedtime sometimes. He wants to stay up until 10 or 11, but I try to get him in bed between 8:30 and 9. I’m hoping once we get him a big boy bed this year he will sleep better. I’m praying he will, because having a child who does not sleep through the night, has been the hardest part of parenting so far.

We are trying to start potty training, but that’s not going so well. Jack wants nothing to do with the potty. I try to get him to sit on it as often as I can, but he fights me. When I ask him if he wants to sit on the potty he quickly responds with “nope”. I’m pretty sure he will learn how to read before he learns to poop in the toilet. I’m praying that when he’s ready it just clicks, but for now, it’s a big frustration for me.

Even though it’s not always easy, I honestly don’t know how I ever lived without this little angle in my life. He fills my world with love. I say this all the time, but there is no greater title I have than being “Jack’s mom”.

Adding Color to February

February 6, 2019 by Katie Haller

It’s February now and I think most people are pretty excited about that. I never thought much of the month of February until 3 years ago when my due date was set for February. Now every year I look forward to the month because I get to celebrate my little guys’ birthday. He’s turning 3 this year and it’s really hard for me to believe. I still refer to him as baby Jack when I’m talking to my students at school about him, but now I feel like he’s too big to be called that. Now that he’s 3, he is actually remembering things and knows what’s going on. This makes me feel pressured to make sure his birthday is extra special, so it looks like I need to spend some time on Pinterest planning out some birthday ideas.

Anyway on to fashion. Since it’s February, I’m going to try to break out of my leggings and sneakers phase that I’ve been going through for the last month and attempt to put together some more colorful outfits. The grey winter months need a little color. Everyone always really loves reds and pinks for Valentine’s Day, but I’m really loving purple too! This lavender sweater that I’m sharing today was a Christmas gift from one of my students. I don’t always like getting clothes as a gift, because I’m picky and I don’t want to be rude if I don’t like it, but I actually really love this sweater. It’s something that I would have never picked out for myself. I probably would have bought it in oatmeal or grey. It’s nice to have a bright pastel color in my closet. I figured that it would transition well into the spring and also look really nice around Easter. Scroll down to find out all the details!

*This post contains affiliate links, which means by clicking on and/or making a purchase through a link, I will make a commission for this blog. Thank you for your support!