Clothing Frustrated

I will be the first to admit that I am more comfortable in a pair of jeans and a hoodie, but I've discovered during my daily attempt to ignore my mounting schoolwork that clothing for the 30 something crowd can be completely just off base unless you have insane amounts of money that a full time graduate student / mom does not have....

I can no longer do the major mall stores because they cater to someone at LEAST ten years younger than I  and the stores for "women" are well.... Ok like the lady in "This is 40" said... I'm not ready to shop at JJill and Chicos.....


So I don't want to look like this...

you can get this look at forever21.com

and I am not exactly ready for this...

you can get this look at chicos.com

and I cannot in any way afford this...

This is from jcrew.com and the sweater is over 200 dollars by itself.........

I know there are places to go and I know that if I look long and hard enough I find something that compromises but sometimes I Just get so frustrated because I do want to dress nice, but the effort and the costs end up so annoying that my hoodie and jeans are still a staple.