Stop buying things in an attempt to make things better

Someone cheered one of my older “live instead of exist” entries, which prompted me to do a short reading of some of my older material. And I happened to notice my spending addiction kicked off last October, so it’s been a year :)

I feel like things are going a lot better for me this year. I’ve been utilizing my meal plan. I’ve used more meals this midterm than I did all of last semester. That’s something I can be proud of, I think.

Also, I have not bought any new makeup since June. I can’t think of any haircare products I’ve bought since I’ve been in school, and the only things I’ve added to my wardrobe this semester are a skirt and a t-shirt. The majority of my money goes toward gas and admittedly food.

I did have a mishap with my books that costed me an unexpected $170, so that hurt my $1000 budget for this semester. I’m hurting (redundant, don’t care) on that… I have about $250 left and my parents have helped me out here and there. They paid for me to come home over a three-day weekend and my mom gave me $20 in quarters to do laundry. My boyfriend also helps out a lot—way more than he should. I’m not sure where all my money went to! Like seriously, the bank is applying fees to my account because of inactivity!

It’s frustrating that I can’t see where all my money ran off to :\ Overall though, I think things are going a lot better. Admittedly, I could trim my food costs… and I’m doing my best with gas, but it is what it is. C’est la vie.

in this one. Haaaaaaaa.

Four Deodorants
Six Lotions
Four Body washes
Four Soaps
Six Perfumes

This is the kind of stuff I travel with most often so I’m sure there’s quite a few I’m not accounting for.

Short entry so I thought I’d tack this on too: Although I’m not recounting, I’m pretty sure I probably still have about twenty chapsticks. I gave a few away to my niece though.

Also, I just stumbled upon my FTX baggie but whatever. I’m not even gonna count that stuff. I consider that a requirement.

I have a lot of facial products! I’m not even talking about makeup… that’s a whole nother category, trust me. I’ve taken inventory…

Six face-exclusive moisturizers (half are complete shit!)
Seven Salicylic acid-based products
Two Benzoyl peroxide-based products
Four products that don’t appear to have an active ingredient
Two bar soaps: one from Lush, one from a gas station in Wisconsin.
One Bio-oil, a product I admittedly love to the ring of $20/4.2 fl. oz.
Two exfoliating products
Two packages of wipes

That’s twenty-six plus any that may be hiding. I’m thinking about throwing away the ones that are more bad than good. Why force myself to use a product that is drying or causes breakouts?

I’ve bought five products this summer. Four have been new and one has been a re-buy.

Okay, I have taken inventory of my haircare products. Here it is:

Six Shampoo
Five Mousse
Six Hairspray
Five Conditioner
Three Misc. Volumizing products
Three Dry shampoo
Three Heat protectant
Two ???? “Rough it putty” and “texture paste”
One Detangling spray

And countless abandoned products in the bathroom closet that I never use… and probably more hiding in bags or under my bed… etc.

So I have 34 styling products.
Can anyone recommend a reaaallllly good mousse? I ask because I’d like to have a go-to product so I can stop experimenting and collecting more stuff. Well, I need volumizing products, really…

IN MY DEFENSE though, I’ve only bought one new thing this entire summer! And it was to replace a product I use almost daily.

Progress, progress, progress…

During college, I started filling a wine-esque bottle up with pennies and dimes. As time went on, I tried my best to fill it with more dimes and less pennies so the bottle would be worth more at the end. As you can see from the picture above, a dollar in dimes takes up way less space than a dollar in pennies.

The bottle is almost full! I showed it to my parents tonight.
“I bet there’s about fifty bucks in here!” I said excitedly.
They looked doubtful.
“I don’t know,” my mom said, “you’ve got a lot of pennies in there.”
but I was convinced. So I took out all the money and found $5.36 worth of pennies…

The good news is my pile of 500 pennies is about the same size as my pile of dimes. Theoretically, there should be about 500 dimes as well. That would put me at my $50 mark. I’m tempted to count them all, just to prove my parents wrong…. but I have faith in my good judgment. Plus, I want to keep the value of my bottle a surprise :)

Tomorrow I’m going to the bank to trade my pennies in for a roll of dimes. Unfortunately this will set me back on filling up my bottle, but by the end I think I will be much more happy with my savings :)

A quote, from me… two years ago.

“Okay, I’m cheap, seriously. I never really like to spend money. I haven’t spent any of my paycheck for about a year and a half. I’m thinking about blowing it all to go on a foreign exchange trip to New Zealand. Now I’m even more tight w/ my money. I won’t buy a muffin, thinking, ‘I’d rather go to New Zealand than eat that muffin’ because even though a muffin costs a dollar a muffin per day is $5 a week. Ahh!”

Well said, me…well said.
God, I used to be so smart.

Last week…
I over-drafted. In Rapid City. 300 miles away from home.

The fee, because I’m a reckless college student, was a modest $12.50 and the bank made an automatic withdraw from my savings account (which used to be $2000 but is now $300) to make up the difference for my forty-some overspending.

Uhm. WTF happened to my five-figure bank account I used to brag about?? Why is it all in my closet and bathroom now??

buying underwear tomorrow.

Because I have wanted to go to Aerie for MONTHS and now I’m finally on the correct side of the state to do so. I’m also spending time with my best friend, T’Shael in Sioux Falls. We haven’t seen each other since 23rd December… uh… when we went to the Mall of America ::cough cough::

I will post the damage tomorrow.

I officially own over 70 pairs of panties.

Carry on.

I’m on the Victoria’s Secret website right now…free shipping with bra purchase. UGH. So. much. want.

wantwantwantwantwant.
$78 for four things.
):
siiiigh. Want.