little white truths

I just did my three month update for my skincare no buy (see here), so I thought I may as well come back and do the same thing for my makeup no buy - except that I've only been on this one for two months so far.

If you're interested in seeing my opening post for my makeup no buy, it's here. Essentially I'm not allowed to buy any non-essential makeup until the beginning of June, at which time I might allow myself a purchase or two (June being my birthday month) before reinstating the no buy until the festive season, when I may or may not buy some of the 2018 holiday releases.

So far I've only made one essential purchase during my makeup no buy, which was a brow pencil that I needed because mine had run out. I've done an update on that purchase here if you're interested, and note that under my no buy rules, that kind of purchase in permitted (ie, I've run out of something and have no back-up for it).

Otherwise I've stuck to the spending ban, and funnily enough, it hasn't been as difficult for me this time as it was last time. I can only imagine this is because we have very real financial incentives to curb spending on all fronts at the moment, which wasn't the case before (we didn't have kids then) - so that in itself has helped me stay focused without struggling too much.

Now I've already talked about this quite a bit in the skincare no buy update I just wrote, but let's assume that not everyone who reads this has read that too - so I'll rehash what I said before here.

In a nutshell, since the beginning of the year we've been curbing spending across the board and not only removing the non-essentials, but also looking at reducing the essentials (eg utilities and groceries). So we're using less water, gas and electricity, and we're getting wiser with our supermarket trips.

On top of this, I've been focusing on decluttering the amount of stuff we have in every room of the house, and the more I do this, the more I want to do it. Because every time I remove toys and things we don't need, this means I've got less to clean, pick up, wash, fold and dust every day. So of course I'm in the 'less junk' frame of mind, and one of the best ways to reduce junk is to stop any more from entering the house.

What I'm saying here is, I think the fact that we've been living more frugally across the board has helped me to not focus on beauty products so much, so I don't feel that I'm missing out on anything: I'm too busy being excited as I watch our credit card bill reducing each month. Added to this, the house is looking less overrun by stuff these days because I've managed to offload so much, and I like the house better like this so I don't want to bring in anything else that we don't need.

So in sum, the makeup no buy is going well and I'm pleased with it so far. Yes of course I occasionally see something I want to buy, but I also know that everything can wait and there'll be plenty of opportunities to buy stuff later on, when we have more disposable cash and when my collection is small enough that I have holes I'm able to fill when they arise.

And yes there are sales happening eyerywhere and yes I've got my eye on that Marc Jacobs bronzer and perhaps the ABH Soft Glam Eyeshadow Palette, but the reality is that I don't need any more powders for the moment and I'm too busy panning what I do own, so even if I did buy them, I wouldn't be using them much anytime soon. They would just gather dust.

Anyhoo. Hope all's well with you, and speak soon x