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My beauty spending addiction: update



I promised myself this year to spend less on cosmetics. In 2019, I spent a whopping 4133 euros on beauty. I know because I kept track in Excel.

I told myself to only buy my favourites this year and to not try anything new, because new products are usually disappointing.

So far, at the end of April, a third into 2020, I have spent 1400 euros already, nevertheless.

If I keep going like this for the rest of the year, it will add up to more than last year, or 4500 euros.

On the other hand, there is good news. I don't see it adding up to such an amount. Why? Because I also kept track of my absolute regrets. In 2019, a staggering 46% off all the cosmetics I bought were absolutely terrible. It wasn't just the money I was spending that was bad, the worst part was that I put 2000 euros down the drain for nothing! Absolutely nothing! And had to buy bin bags too to get rid of the stuff!

Hence why this year I did buy cosmetics a lot more carefully. So far, only 25% of my purchases were disappointing. That's still more than 300 euros wasted so far, so I need to focus even more on only buying what I know I love. But the good news is that 75% of the products is what I love.

Now I know what you're thinking. This is a budget saving trick, not a "how to spend even more but on products I do like" project. I am so far spending more money, relatively, so far, but on things I love. I am still buying new things. About 40% of what I spent was on something I didn't know yet. Although I liked it, that couldn't possibly be the plan! My plan was to stick to what I know. If I had done that, my spending would be about 750 euros so far, or 2300 for the entire year (not too bad).

A bit good news though is that the fact that almost 25% of what I bought was something I already knew, from my favourites list, meant I was doing some hamstering of my favourites so I would always feel like I have enough, and buying them when there is a sale (this is ok for absolute favourites, cause they will have to be bought anyway). E.g., I bought a couple of my one and only favourite lipsticks, eyeshadow monos and eyeshadow primer, the things I will use anyway, so I can last a bit longer for the rest of the year without buying.

More good news is that thanks to the lockdown I am absolutely not tempted by beauty collections, not that there seemed to be anything good this year. I also have no idea how these brands will produce new makeup now that China is upside down. I'm not spotting much new on the webshops. The shops here are opening on May 11 but I won't be rushing to the perfumery. I admit I have been shopping a bit on makeup webshops. The thing is though, that on webshops I feel less tempted to buy something I don't know yet, because I can't try it. I used to do that when I was younger, e.g. after seeing a tutorial, but I completely stopped doing that. You can make any makeup look with any dupes!

So I am pretty optimistic that my spending for the rest of the year will slow down since I have a bit of a supply of everything I need, and because I was able to cut the amount of purchases of new things I completely regretted in half.

x

Helena

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