By SUSAN DROMEY HEETER, Budget Vogue

Budget Voguers, here we are in 2026, a year where it is glorious to change it up, change your thoughts, change your mind.  You’ll find a picture with this column where someone at Market Basket changed their mind at the very last minute. They returned the My-T-Fine Lemon Pudding & Pie Filling right at the check out, the final moments of a shopping trip. 

Why did they put them with the Bobo’s Chocolate Chip Oat Bites? Who knows? Convenience, undoubtedly, or, perhaps they really had a change of heart and decided the My-T-Fine Lemon Pudding & Pie Filling was just way too much, a mistake, an unfortunate error in judgment.

It’s okay to change our minds. Just today I was thinking how once I was entirely team Lance Armstrong. I’d read ALL of his books, including It’s Not about the Bike: My Journey Back to Life.  I did not have a yellow LIVESTRONG wristband but I admired those who did.  Lance. He was so in shape and dedicated to his craft of biking.  The French had him ALL wrong; they were just jerks – or, so I thought. Turned out, well, Lance was doping, CHEATING.  And I believed him. Yuck.

So, I changed my mind. And learned an awful lot about blood transfusions and the Tour de France. Who knew? I’d been duped.

Alas, it’s good to change our minds – about people, places, pudding and pie filling.  The idea that we can evolve, change our opinions and our ideas is growth, is vogue at its best. We don’t need to remain stuck in the old; perhaps if you have a red hat with some white writing on it, you may re-think that fashion, perhaps donate that ball cap to a thrift shop or use it as a holder for tampons.

The possibilities are endless.

And the possibilities are endless when we are open to vogue in all areas of our lives: kindness, fairness, our constitutional rights, our freedom to protest, our freedom to call out cruelty, leaders who are scarier than a Market Basket before a snowstorm.

That person who put the My-T-Fine Lemon Pudding & Pie mix probably had no idea their choice would be picked up by this Budget Vogue fashionista.  But, do know, Voguers, those Bobo’s Chocolate Chip Oat Bites reflect the lovely term, “Bobo” which, as was the nickname of a former neighbor, BoBo Phillips.  He’d been given this moniker upon his birth when his French grandfather looked upon him and pronounced him, “Beau, Beau.”  Beautiful. Beautiful.

And it’s beautiful, c’est tres beau to know we can change. This Budget Vogue Fashionista invites you to celebrate your own ability to change things up – even if it means putting the My-T-Fine Lemon Pudding & Pie mix down right along side the Bobo’s Chocolate Chip Oat Bites. 

Susan Dromey Heeter writes from Newmarket and often from the road where she celebrates thrift shops and delights in FREE signs on the side of the road.  She writes of all things frugal and fun, second hand as opposed to Amazon deliveries.  Follow Susan @BudgetVogue63 on Instagram.  Dromey Heeter ADORES reader responses, stories and questions. She can also be reached at dromeyheeter@gmail.com.