Originally Posted by substructure
My wife ain't too pleased with all my cold weather purchases lately (arm warmers, gloves, leg warmers, base layers, etc.). To her commuting to work is merely a pleasure of mine for exercise and not for economics. As of now I’m not making the 84 mile full commute everyday for her to notice a difference in our pocketbooks so anymore purchases are going to have to be extremely cheap.
Eighty-four miles A DAY? You must drive part of that. If 15 miles of that is by bike and your car gets 26 miles per gallon and gasoline is two dollars a gallon, you are saving $1.12 a day in hard savings on gasoline; more if the distance is farther and/or the mileage is lower and/or the price of gas is higher. So you are entitled to spend SOME money.
I have gotten a couple winter items at a local Army-Navy surplus store; leather gloves with wool liners good to about 25 degrees, a hood (balaclava, I believe), some ski goggles.
Payless Shoesource was my source for insulated hiking boots that I use for bike shoes (I don't use toe clips).
For really cold weather I have some wool paratrooper pants from the surplus store with wind shields in the thighs. Only a couple days a year justify those.
For hand wear below about 25, I have leather mitten shells over knitted mittens, with a homemade third, innner, layer of WindBloc Polar Fleece purchased over the internet ($20 a yard, one-yard minimum order) from the Malden Mills online store. I am hoping they compete well with the $65+ mittens from REI that I did NOT purhase.