Around this time last year I set a goal for myself that I wanted to spend a lot less on makeup. Believe me I do not judge you if you spend a lot on makeup. This is not meant to be a preachy post or to try to tell anyone to do anything. If you are looking to cut back on your makeup collection/spending on makeup, I would like to share what worked for me.
Let me give you some background - I'm in my mid-thirties have a great career and make a nice living. Around this time last year I made a decision that I wanted to renovate my bathroom in my condo. I got some estimates and felt like I couldn't afford it. My brother (who happens to be a financial planner) made a joke that if I stopped buying makeup I could probably afford my bathroom renovation.
I started to really dig deeper into his comment and really looked at my finances. In 2016 just at sephora I had spent over $2800. That's approximately $230/month. This didn't include Ulta, Drugstore or other purchases from places like morphe/colour pop. I realized in 2016 I spent nearly $8K at all of the above. My spending was out of control. Yes I could afford it technically, I don't have any credit card debt, but I don't have a ton of savings either and I couldn't afford my bathroom renovation which I had priced out at about $14K.
I felt really overwhelmed and embarrassed. Here I am a 30 something year old woman holding down a great career but I'm constantly buying more and more makeup that I don't really need. I really started to think about what was causing me to really want to do this. I realized I constantly felt like I had to have the next palette or next collection that came out or I'd be missing out. I had so much makeup I had to buy a second chest of drawers for my bedroom to store it all. On January 14th last year I had it. I had too much stuff and spent way too much money.
I spent that whole weekend going through my makeup and I had so many unused palettes that I just bought because some beauty blogger/vlogger/commercial/etc made me feel like I needed it. I put all my unused palettes and makeup in a pile limited edition or not and I sold them on poshmark (they sold pretty quickly if you are looking for a place to sell your unused makeup).
I went through all of my makeup I no longer used and anything that was only a bit used but I just didn't want I put in a box and invited a bunch of girlfriends over for cocktails and cosmetics. I let them dig through my box of makeup and have at it (anything that wasn't sanitary to give away I threw out). Anything that wasn't taken at that party or by other friends/family members I got rid of.
I narrowed my makeup collection down from a 6 drawer to chest to one drawer in that chest and finally down to a manageable 3-drawer plastic trolley that fits on my dressing table in my room.
I was afraid I was going to get back into buying and end up where I started so I unsubscribed from a lot of youtubers just constantly pushing products, I unsubscribed from sephora, ulta and various other makeup brands. I removed the sephora and ulta apps on my phone.
I knew I still loved makeup so I did allow myself a budget of $50/month to spend on makeup. My rule was if I didn't use it I could carry it over and save it. The only exception to this I allowed was if I was buying something for someone else (I bought my niece something for her birthday and my Mom something for mother's day).
The first few months (Jan - April) weren't that hard because I still had so much makeup in my collection that I had a lot of variety. It's when I started to run low on things figuring out how to stretch my budget for makeup. I refound a lot of drugstore loves and stopped using a lot of high end products. There are some holy grail items I couldn't live with out though.
I only went over my monthly budget twice: once when the fenty beauty collection came out and when patrick starrr's mac collection came out.
I hit pan on many of the products I kept (which I had rarely done before). I actually hit pan on my naked2 palette!
In 2017 I spent a total of around $900 on makeup or at makeup stores and this includes a sweet 16 gift for my niece and a mother's day gift for my mom.
I'm super close to starting my bathroom renovation and have most things picked out.
I thought I would share my journey in case anyone is feeling overwhelmed by their collection and constantly feels the need for new makeup.
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from Makeup Addiction http://ift.tt/2mdwqbj
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