Where do you buy your jeans?

After years of randomly stumbling upon pairs of jeans--either because a friend didn't want them anymore or they were on eBay for $13.99 and somehow fit or there was one weird style left at the bottom of the discard pile at Urban Outfitters--last year, I invested in my first real designer jeans. And I have lived to regret it.

It wasn't the denim's fault, it was my own. I'd been so excited to just go crazy and spend $257 on something fancy, that my heart was racing and my reasoning was blurry. This was the definition of an impulse buy and I chose all wrong: A high-waisted, slightly-belled style that looked great that one miracle-skinny day in the fitting room, but, ever since, have rendered me a sausage-y, '70s, Farrah-gone-wrong.

So, now I have cold feet. And the crotch in my favorite skinnies has gone out, and my black stovepipes have long become a faded-in-the-wrong-places gray and I just need new jeans and I don't know where to turn. Ideally, the new ones would be cool and great-fitting and boot-cut-ish and dark and not too expensive and last me 3 million years. Anyone know where to find such a magical item? Or, at the very least, tell me: What's your favorite denim source?