H&M has cured me of the terrible and expensive curse of Target...

Today my sister and I went to Target because she needed to get a few things and I needed to pick up a yoga mat for my Kindergartner's after school program (yup, yoga for kinders).

We started out in the dollar section where I picked up some Elmo barrettes for... you got it, a dollar, as well as some 2lb. weights that were oddly 1.50 each, but still qualified for the dollar section. Close enough, I guess.

And then we got to the clothes section, which is usually my downfall. It's not that I love the clothes at Target so much, because I am sufficiently snobby in that area, but there are sometimes some really great finds that inevitably make it into my cart and then somehow find themselves placed in the front of my closet where my fave clothes hang out. And then along with whatever new doodads I find in the kitchen section (another weakness), and the very cute $5.99 pieces from the little girls' section, and of course, the jumbo pack of size 5 diapers that I hope we're on the verge of not needing, we usually get to the checkout with a bill hardly ever less than $50-100. It's a very expensive way to save money.

But you know what happened today?

I looked that cute speckly grey sweater dress right in its tunic and walked away.

And then I walked away from the almost cute $12 watch, the weighted jumprope, and the running pants that were really cute except for the fact that they had lime green trim.

I then quickly walked past the kitchen section, put back a photo album and a pair of pajama bottoms and a large bag of gummy fish.

And when I got to the checkout, my bill was $34 which included the $24 yoga mat for Tali, which is at least $50 less expensive than my usual Target bill.

You might be wondering how this happened... How could I have been so strong as to withstand all Target shopping urges?

The answer, my friends, is H&M.

The new store opened last week and Mari, Kim, and I all made it to the grand opening. Supposedly, the first 200 shoppers were supposed to get gift certificates and cool bags filled with branded swag, but after the first hundred, it seemed that they started giving them out randomly. But somehow, Kim managed to sweet talk a bag from some guy ahead of us in line and then after divvying up some of her loot with the rest of us, she went back to work (how mature of her) and left us slackers to wait in line until the doors opened.

Which we did. Mari managed to dig up a lollipop from the bottom of her purse to bribe Naomi into her stroller because it store was too chaotic to let her out. And then we joined the hoards of people grabbing for hip and inexpensive clothes. We saw the greatest wool coat for $34.90 and seriously, while I was hemming and hawing for the 30 second decision between grey and black, they were all gone. It was a frantic frenzy as we all grabbed things close to our sizes with prices much lower than Target's and for clothes that were so cute.

Later that day, Mari returned a pair of shoes and saw that the clerks had completely restocked the shelves and we realized our frenzy had been for naught. But frenzy or not, compared to H&M, Target was a breeze. I have a feeling that H&M is going to be a problem for me.