If I had $100

[VeloVT]

Hi tofu,

Given some thought to your question. Only advice I can give you is, if you had made that $100 instead of given to you as a gift, what would you do with it? How many hours of work is that after taxes?

smilingcat

Wow, that's excellent advice.

I also like Grits' suggestion of waiting until after Christmas to catch sales.

For running shoes, runningwarehouse.com has excellent prices, a nice selection, free shipping & a good return policy. Like Zappos except cheap (and better running-specific information). I buy running shoes online because I can't find what I like locally, ever (except for nasty winter conditions, when I wear trail shoes, which I do buy locally, I wear lightweight racing flats for training, and apparently that's a low demand item because nobody carries them). I have been running long enough that I have a pretty good idea of what I need in a shoe, though, and I can usually tell immediately when I try a shoe on if it's going to work for me or not, so I can get by with shopping online if the merchant has an easy return policy.