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Only a year ago, when you were talking to your personal shopper, it was accepted—nay, expected—that you'd put him on hold while you simultaneously bid on a new house and instant-messaged your Aston Martin dealership ("nu DB9 asap"). Not any more. Thanks to the evaporation of the world economy, big spending is out of style, guaranteed to generate finger-wagging from the tut-tut crowd. But does this spell the end of self-indulgence? Can one still live large in Canada's financial capital while spending small? Determined to find out, I withdrew $300 and gave myself eight hours to spend it—an eternity, I thought.
I started off right—with breakfast. At $3.99, Tim Hortons' new breakfast combo seemed pricey. I asked them to hold the egg and walked away with a sausage patty and melted cheese on a homestyle biscuit—and a coffee, of course—for $2.60. Energized as much by the savings as by the caffeine, I headed to the outlet mall for some factory-priced new duds.
The folks at Holt Renfrew Last Call must think the economic stimulus is working just fine, because the cheapest sports jacket they had was $400. I spent 85% less at Banana Republic ($45) and slipped into a natty corduroy number. I found a pair of jeans at the Gap for $35. In fact, I saved so much that I actually went back to Holt's and threw down a pre-recessionary $126 for an Etro shirt, which not only injected some much-needed liquidity into the economy, it really pulled the outfit together.
Nothing says "I'm beating the downturn" like trim cuticles and polished fingernails. I had a little over $90 left, but it wasn't yet noon. Still, I had more than enough for the men's manicure at
The Ten Spot nail bar in downtown Toronto. Afterwards, I stopped in at Corrado's Barber Shop—where the man has been giving haircuts since 1957—for a quality trim in a room decorated with posters of naked young women that are so incredibly vintage, many of the models are likely deceased by now. That's worth $20.
I even managed a quick session in the tanning booth at Glow.
I looked superb, from my coiffed head to the hem of my new jeans. That's when I looked down at my shoes. With $43 left, I didn't have enough for one new shoe, let alone a pair. I did manage to get my loafers polished to good-as-new condition for $8 at Penny Loafers Shoe Shine Co., in the basement of the Royal York Hotel and the oldest such place in the country.
I felt as good as I looked. More importantly, I was in surplus, and celebrated by buying a Julius Vesz hand-rolled cigar ($14.95) on my way out of the hotel. There was even a crisp $20 left over in my pocket. Let's just say, I knew where I'd be eating breakfast the next day, and the six that followed.