Firstly I wanted to get a new car. At the start of the year I knew my car was problematic and I had fallen out of love with it but in the first four months of this year I had already spent £800 on repairs which was basically a deposit for a new car so when it gave up on me for the third time, I decided it was time to get a new one. My old car was lovingly named Soggy due to the license plate ending in SGY. I was gutted to give him up as he was my first car and honestly he was my dream car.
Before I had a car I had always wanted my Dad's Mini and when he was looking to get rid of it, I jumped at the change to take it off his hands. After a hefty payment, it was all mine. However, the love affair died last year after my car spent more time in the garage than I did driving it. I had been thinking about getting a new car for a while and I finally did that in April this year. I bought my second car, another Mini. This time the name isn't quite as good as the license plate doesn't give me a great set up but my new cars name is Jezza. I adore him and he is everything I wanted in my second car.
Seeing as my first task is now complete, I move onto the second, start looking for a new job. A lot harder than it sounds as my job isn't bad, it just isn't what I want to do for the rest of my life. I am now looking for a role which will get me towards my dream job of being a beauty editor. This year I have certainly been putting the foundations in place to get me to my dream writing job but I am not quite their yet. I have continued working on my own blog, started writing for my works blog and I am undergoing a course on coding.
What I am trying to say is, I'm still working on this one. Without completing task two, I cannot move on to task 3, moving out. Yes I still live with my parents but I am on minimum wage so I simply cannot afford to realistically move out on what I am paid so I need a new job to be able to move. You never know a new job and moving might come hand in hand but I guess we will have to see about this.
These are some of the ambitions I have and I feel like they are well structured but all of them centre around one thing, money. To buy a car I need money, I work to get money and to move out I need to work more to get more money to move out. You see it is a cycle of money. One big problem I have had this year is spending but over the course of the rest of the year I am now adding rules on my spending to try and minimise it and make my moving out dream a reality.
Effects of Blogging
I am all too aware of the effect of writing a blog on my life and honestly I never meant for it to happen. My blog is something I really enjoy and had enabled me to continue writing and allows me to write about something I enjoy but there are negatives. I certainly do not give myself enough time off, between working and blogging I am basically always working. Sometimes I do need to give myself more of a break. Not only that but I have got to a point where I will buy things specifically to talk about them on my blog and I never wanted to get to this point.I always wanted my blog content to be organic, I wanted to talk about products that I was using (which I still do) but that I had bought anyway and not with the sole idea of buying to test for my blog. I have now reached a point where I will buy things, just to try them for my blog and now I have so many products I haven't written about, that just in my beauty draws. Or I write about them and then move on to something else. I never wanted to be a wasteful blogger and that is what I have become and for the rest of the year I want to put a stop to this. From now on, the blogging rules are changing.
To try and save my bedroom from filling up with more stuff I don't need, and to try and lighten the burden my bank balance currently faces, I have come up with a solution and I believe it will not effect the amount I write on my blog. There are currently two areas in my life which need attention and a serious downsize, my wardrobe and my beauty collection so for the rest of the year I am limiting how much is added.
Beauty
In terms of beauty what I am going to do is essentially carry No Beauty Spend June on throughout the year. I had been thinking about doing this anyway but because I have done so well for the past two months I thought why not continue and see how far I can take this. During June I do not allow myself to buy any beauty products. If I need something I have to find an alternative within my collection. However, during July I have changed this a little bit to a less strict One in, One out policy.In addition if I have a product in my collection that can be used instead of going out and buying a new product, I force myself to use that product. I will now be carrying this mindset on for the rest of the year. Not only does it help my bank balance but it also helps to decrease my beauty stash. In a way it also helps the environment. I means I am putting less waste out and I am using products that I potentially would have thrown away previously. In every sense this is a win win situation, apart from the beauty brands who will no longer being getting my money and their free advertising on my blog.
It will also mean that the products I talk about on my blog will hopefully be ones I truly like and want to talk about. I feel like at the moment I try a lot of products I like and I look for the good within every product but when I am more limited I feel like my opinion is going to be stronger so this is definitely going to be benefit you as well.
There is going to be one exception to this rule, I mean I can't truly limited myself to that degree of severity for the rest of the year, I would feel like I was setting myself up to fail. Instead I will be allowing myself ONE beauty treat a month. It can be a products that I don't need but want. At the moment I have been treating myself to these products all too often and I feel like I have lost the meaning of a treat item so I'm hoping this will give me a little bit of the excitement back. Also I want it to force me to think about what I am buying more. If I can only buy one treat a month, it has to be the product I want the most so this means more research from now on.
Fashion
Fashion hasn't always been a problem, I was pretty good but as I have started to work on my Instagram more, I am more conscious that I want more clothes. Plus I see things on Instagram and I think they would look great on me and I just buy them but these purchases add up. Last month I did 4 ASOS orders! 4 is definitely excessive and unnecessary so this also has to change. I really do not need that many clothes as I don't even have the luxury of wearing my own clothes to work, the only time I get to wear these great outfits is on the weekends.At the start of the year I said I wanted to cut down on the amount of fast fashion I buy because I know how bad it is for the environment and I simply do not get the wear out of the clothes. Well, this year I have been even worse for buying fast fashion. I am trying to live a bit more cheaply so I buy fast fashion but then I will also buy a couple of luxury pieces which I wear so much more often. It means that the money I was meant to be saving by shopping fast fashion isn't actually saved because I buy the pieces I would truly want anyway. I know, I am incredibly stupid which is why a change needs to happen.
I've decided I can no longer buy clothes simply on the grounds that I like them, they need to add something to my wardrobe which I don't already have and to be honest I basically have everything anyway. I had originally said that I was only going to be allowed 1 piece of clothing a month so I really had to think about that piece but as my friend Aleisha pointed out to me, I will fail! I can't go cold turkey like that so she suggested I allow myself one haul a month. As in, I can order a couple of items but they have to be from the same place and within the same order or shop depending on if it is online or in store. I feel like this is a good concession and I am also going to set the limit of £100. This might seem a lot but I am definitely spending more than this a month at the moment on clothes.
Once again, much like my beauty exception, there will also be a clothing exception which is events. For the most part I have enough clothes to cover me but if I need a specific outfit for Halloween or for a Christmas Party then I will allow myself to buy these in addition to my 1 haul a month. I will try to do this as cheaply as possible but we will see what happens with this and whether there are any events I need to dress up for.
Accessories
Accessories isn't a massive one for me but it is where I tend to treat myself, I love a bag and I definitely love shoes. I have always lived by the rule that I can buy myself one pair of designer shoes a year and one handbag as well. Last year I may have cheated on the bag front but oh well, I've moved on.
This years quota for both of these sections has now been filled so I cannot buy anymore shoes or bags which are considered luxury. I think buying a Primark bag is slightly different. All I can say is that there will be no more luxury accessory buying until next year now.
These are the rules I am going to live by until the end of the year. I might allow myself a treat in the post Christmas sales but for now, this is how it is going to be. I will be honest and say if I break any of these rules and for the rest of the year I will be posting about these rules keeping you updated on how I am going on. It is my intention to do a month empties and show you what I have finish and what I have repurchased to replace it. I will also be writing about the fashion pieces I have picked up and why.
I do hope this will inspire some people to cut down with me. I know a lot of bloggers buy an excessive amount of items which really we do not need. I am also hoping it will force me to get a little bit more creative with some of my blog posts. I look forward to the challenge and I hope it is going to rethink my mindset on spending.
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