Early February is a bit of a weird time to be shopping. Most of the great sales have drawn to a close, but spring collections haven’t quite yet made their full thrust into stores and shopping sites. It’s even harder if you’re a sale fiend – there are deals to be had, but they can be few and far between if you don’t know where to look.

If I told you that loving handbags is an expensive hobby, it’d be preaching to the choir – you guys already know that a single glimpse of the perfect bag can put a dent in your bank account with a quickness. We spend a lot of time exploring the garden of earthly delights that constitutes the highest of the high end bag markets, and sometimes I completely forget that covetable stuff exists at the opposite end.

Somehow, my years of writing about fashion on the Internet have made me simultaneously less sensitive to prices but more stingy with my fashion money. When you’re lucky enough spend all day looking at the most covetable bags and shoes in the world, you become acutely aware that the next Next Big Thing is always right around the corner, and knowing that makes it difficult to justify committing money to anything other than the pieces that you just can’t picture yourself living without.

BCBG Max Azria is a name we all know, but I’m not sure I’ve ever really looked to the brand for its accessories. That’s all going to change now, though, because after playing with some BCBG bags last week, I’m hooked. Not only are the styles really chic, but the prices are also so fair that each item seems like a smart choice.

Making an expensive-looking bag at an attainable price point is the eternal challenge of designing for a contemporary brand. Customers who are willing to spend hundreds of dollars on a handbag are likely aware of what handbags that cost thousands look like, and brands are forever in competition with those ideal images. Sometimes the contemporary designers succeed, but often, the best they can hope for is a solid contemporary look.

Seasonal transitions are among the most difficult things to deal with in fashion. It’s cold in the morning, warm by afternoon and then cold again for happy hour, and who knows what it’s going to be like tomorrow? Do you wear your stuff from last season, or your stuff from next season? Some combination of the two? And what colors and textures won’t make you look like you’re stuck in the recent past or near future?

Over the past couple of years, colorblocked neutrals have become a season-change staple. Because black, tan and grey leather, along with neutral exotics, don’t require a certain temperature or sunlight level in order to look appropriate, it only makes sense that they’re used to make pieces that consumers love, especially during the times of year when it might be 40 degrees one day and 70 the next.

While I go by Megs around these parts, my full name is Meaghan. (Yes, all those extra letters are part of my name). I rarely, if ever, have seen my name used in full, spelled exactly like mine, but the ever-popular easy version of my name is utilized often. Tory Burch has a new addition to her collection and it shares my name, if not my spelling.

It’s already pretty rare when a handbag excites me immediately, and it’s even more rare when that bag comes in at less than $500. When it comes to accessories, modern design and attention to detail often require a premium price tag, and most of us are simply resigned to that fact. With that in mind, I’m sure you can imagine my excitement when I first came across the Loeffler Randall Rider Bag.

During college, I logged a few years working at the local Best Buy, so you could say that I’m intimately familiar with the ins and outs of the holiday shopping season. We all know about the first two phases – Black Friday, followed by regular gift shopping – but the third is less talked-about. During my time in the retail trenches, we called it the Gift Card Apocalypse.