Hello my beautiful readers!
If you have followed my Project No-Buy, then you know it has been 15 weeks since I started it. It was not so much a No Buy, but instead a low-buy. I wanted to try this out to try and lower the amount of money I am spending on makeup while trying to stick to my New Year resolutions. This was such a great experience, and I am so glad I tried it out. I know many of you guys went ahead and started this too, and that makes me so happy!
After doing this for 15 weeks, there is a couple of things I have noticed about my spending habits:
1. I spend most of my money on drugstore makeup.
This is not bad, but it is astonishing. I have this mind set that because drugstore makeup is cheaper, I can buy a lot and not spend too much. This is so not true. Even if they are cheaper than high end items, the prices accumulate and I end up spending $50-$100 every time I go to the drugstore. This happens often because I constantly check drusgtores for limited edition collections.
Fix: Only go to the drugstore to search for limited edition items I really, really want and don't buy something because it's "cheap". Avoid trips to the drugstore or to cosmetic aisles.
2. I tend to buy items, not because I wanted to try them out, but because I want to review them on my blog.
This is great, but I do this very often. I have to stop doing this because it makes me spend more money than I have to. And, more often than not, I don't end up reviewing the product anyways and it becomes a waste of money.
Fix: Because I'm a blogger I will always have this tendency, but I should focus more on products that I really want. If the thought "these would be great to review on my blog" comes to me before "this product would look so great on me" (o something like that), I should probably not buy the product.
3. Around 75% of my makeup purchases are impulsive buys.
Most of the things I buy are impulsive buys, or in other words, last-minute irrational purchases. Most of these purchases I tend to regret. I am learning to do my research before investing the money on products (especially the more expensive ones).
Fix: Look for swatches or reviews of that product and then really think about whether I really need or want it.
Cutting down the amount of spending I do has been hard, and it will still be hard in the future. But I know that I can give myself challenges in order to "earn" the right to spend money on makeup. This is what I have been doing these 15 weeks; awarding myself a budget for makeup according to how many goals I achieve. This is something that I will be sticking to because it has actually worked. I'd say my spending has been cut down at least 40% these past 15 weeks. I don't think I could cut down my spending completely, but 40% is a good start! I will do some updates in the weeks to come to just talk about the long-term effects of this low-buy. I hope these habits will stick and that I can slowly decrease the amount I spend!
I hope you all enjoyed this as much as I did~! And for those of you who are currently doing this challenge, I wish you luck!
