A former supervisor whom I contacted for a reference prior to resuming study after a 20-year hiatus told me that I was more or less wasting my time in seeking to enter a saturated job market populated by those younger, fresher, hungrier and less shop-worn than I.
It chimes with the bishops' call for less shopping and more praying.
But, in an experiment, the OFT found that reference prices lead to less shopping around, benefiting traders who deploy them.
"Of course, there are six less shopping days this year and concerns about the Middle East are on consumers' minds.
Reliability of supply is more important than price, which means there is less shopping around at any stage of the supply chain.
"With six less shopping days this year, we're a little concerned," said Melanie Willoughby, president of the New Jersey Retail Merchants Association, which represents 3,500 merchants in the state.
Reducing the amount of beauty products you use means less shopping, less cost, less packaging waste, fewer thrown-out plastic bottles, and fewer questionable chemical compounds being absorbed into your skin.
It demands a new kind of empathy for an American family that has changed its eating habits (cooking less, shopping more often and buying more prepared foods) and its makeup (more single parents, fewer children).
"If the credit card is a little harder to come by, that means there's a little less shopping going on," said Neal Soss, an economist at Credit Suisse Securities in New York.
