I had a different update planned for today. Until October 28th, I had been diligently no-buying my way through the month, and then…I bought a new pair of UGGs. And a candle. Allow me to explain.
You might recall that in my initial no-buy post, I said that I was doing a replacement-only no-buy, but if I received gift money, I was allowed to spend it freely. Early in October, I received some birthday money from my mom. Late in the month, I received a generous check from my Aunt Anne as a “Congratulations! You bought a house!” gift. This money was totally unexpected, and it was even better to reconnect with her via phone call.
Between the two cash gifts, I have received enough money to restore my beauty budget for the rest of the year, and that’s what I have decided to do. It feels right to me. I’ve said before, with regard to my beauty budget, that I don’t add gift money or unexpected bonuses to my budget. The budget stands alone as a yearly stipend for my frivolous spending and my staple beauty items. At $2,400 for the year or $200 per month, the budget feels generous enough to be satisfying and juicy. It holds me accountable for the things I love to buy.
Receiving an unexpected gift forced me to reevaluate things regarding my no-buy. In my initial post, I wrote:
My main goals are to minimize my frivolous spending and not think about shopping as much. Browsing is fine. I hope to minimize the obsessive thinking and planning around purchases.
Believe it or not, my goals haven’t changed. Where does that leave us?
From a big-picture perspective, we are in the same position as always. Employment is always precarious, there are no guarantees that disaster won’t strike tomorrow, and yet despite all of this uncertainty, we have to live our lives. YOLO and all of that.
We have live our lives. We’re always in a state of balancing today’s pleasure against tomorrow’s needs. This is the tension of modern life in America. Because even if we have enough right now, we all know that our financial security is fragile. Unfortunately, because our social safety net is basically non-existent, we all have to weave together whatever we can to serve as the net when emergency strikes.
I hate this for us. It’s why I’m a socialist. But that, I think, is a conversation for a different day.
Back to beauty budgets. The other reason I feel okay about restoring my original budget is that our income has been much better than expected for the past month. I don’t feel as worried about the immediate future. A regular budget, as opposed to a no-buy, sends the message that these are normal times. And for us, for the foreseeable future, we are now in normal times.
Let’s get into the details of my October spending!
What did I buy?
I bought five items: three replacement items and two treats.
* Two bottles of Hawaiian Tropic Sheer Touch Sunscreen Lotion ($21.58)
* One bottle of Dove Anti-Dandruff Shampoo ($5.03)
* A vanilla candle from Bath & Body Works ($15.10)
* A pair of UGG booties ($116.36)
TOTAL: $158.07
So far, I love all of these items. I haven’t received the UGGs yet, but I’m very happy with everything else. I am planning to review the candle soon here on Ordinary Beauty.
What did I want to buy?
Once again, internet marketing got under my skin. I came across the brand Negative Underwear. Their Whipped Collection in particular is exactly the kind of thing I love—soft, minimal, beautiful pieces. I definitely want a pajama set from Negative Underwear. Their pieces are pretty expensive, and I have no shortage of loungewear and pajamas. But! I’m bookmarking them for a future purchase.
I was really tempted to buy some more cream blush from Phytosurgence. As in: put items in an online cart, check the conversion rate from Canadian to American dollars, and strongly consider pushing that “Place Order” button. But I try really hard to buy blush just once a year, so I’m bookmarking these Phytosurgence blushes for purchase in 2024. (This year, I bought the shades Smolder and Evaporate from Phytosurgence, and I absolutely adore them.)
How I’m feeling
I’m feeling pretty good. The no-buy was helping me to be more intentional about using the things I already own. I only have $364.26 left in my budget, so I need to be mindful of what I choose to purchase in the last two months of the year.
I am happy I bought a few fall tops for myself before the hammer came down on us. I may have felt too guilty to spend $75 on non-essential clothing, but now that I do own these pieces, I have been wearing them nonstop. No regrets!
I’ve been getting excited to write some “duping the vibes” posts about things that inspire me. This kind of writing assignment is fairly labor-intensive and I’m a lazy person, but hopefully I’ll get over myself and get moving on the project.
Broadly speaking, I am trying to be aware of our choices around spending. We’re trying to eat at home more often; when we do have takeout or eat out of the house, I know it’s a treat. Our bank account is doing okay. I’m not going to divulge numbers when it comes to our savings, but three thoughts come to mind: we have a comfortable cushion of money, we’ve had money coming in from previous work, and we have a couple of expensive bills coming up in the near future, namely taxes for our work as contractors/self-employed people and a bill from our property tax advocate. We need to be prepared for those bills.
Happy Halloween, everyone!
Images courtesy of Toa Heftiba (top) and Aaron Burden (bottom) via unsplash.
Glad to read things are better 🩷 what uggs did you pick out? Have you had a pair before?