No Buy Year 2, Month 9, Feb 12- March 12 2020

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I'm in Year 2, Month 9 of my No Buy! Goals for this month:

1. Pay $200 on credit card - will be great - will bring balance down to $600, which will be almost halfway paid off, and almost a baby debt instead of a medium sized one. 

2. Products to finish:

  • Blow Pro Weather Girl Serum mini - The tiny bottle lasts forever! After that I will use Briogeo Rosarco Milk Mini-that will be nice.
  • Yves Rocher Body Scrub Mini from Advent Calendar - almost done. 
  • Freeman Cucumber Pink Salt Masque - After it's done I will use Eve Lom Rescue Masque Mini. Looking forward to it, expensive sample. 
  • Benefit Porefessional Mini
  • Yves Rocher At The Heart of Pine Trees Shower Gel Mini from Advent Calendar 

 
Last year, after I had been on a No Buy for one year, I went back to my old shopping behavior for five months. Every day, I look at my diary entry for one year ago on the current day, and I see how much better off now I am than I was then. My shopping had many tangible and intangible bad effects one me. The tangible effects were things like being overdrawn at the bank and incurring expensive fees, having only $25 cash left for the week, etc., and the intangible effects were stress, anxiety, etc. I have so many fewer bills now than I did last year at this time; I am so much more comfy with money. And it's going to get even better if I continue to stick to my No Buy.

Every day, after I have read last year's diary page and I have not fallen back to my old behavior, I tear up and throw away the old page, so I won't go down that neural and behavioral pathway any longer. 

My diary entry for this weekend last year shows me turning back to HSN shopping. The phrase "denial shopping" came to me. When I was in my old behavior, I always shopped in a way that made me feel like I was not spending a lot, when in reality I was. I loved shopping on HSN or other places that split things up into monthly payments. For example, I'd see beauty items on HSN or QVC that I wanted, and I would see "five payments of $5.00." I would just see the low payments and would not look at the total price of things, let alone shipping fees and taxes. Or, I'd pay on credit, which made it easy for me to not know or care about the price of things. One time I went to an HSN outlet retail store and saw the real price of the merchandise without the flex pays and I could not believe how expensive the stuff was! 

My other weakness has always been the "free gift with purchase." I would buy things I wasn't even planning for or needing just to get a free gift. This explains why I am so into the Yves Rocher brand, as they offer both the "buy now pay later" and "free gift" amenities. I love Yves Rocher, but having a tab with them is stress! 

I never had a budget. My way of trying to get new beauty things in a controlled way was to get a beauty subscription. That is a good idea, but then I would see another box I wanted, and another. I would hop from Boxycharm to Birchbox to Ipsy and on and on, never satisfied. What seemed like the solution became part of the problem. 

 
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Amazing video from Second Year No Buyer Elle S today on YouTube: "$1000 Worth of Eyeshadow ... What Could I have Bought Instead?" Elle shows only seven palettes that cost a total of $1000 (CAD). Elle is not in the dream of denial shopping. She is serious about money, facing reality, real life (though she is still enjoying the creativity of makeup). "I can't afford it," she says. I can relate to her point about being someone who buys a lot of cosmetics, but never goes for a mani or pedi, or anything like that. She asks: How many things have I missed because of my purchases? Now that's something to think about! I often think of how my life would have been different if I'd been able to start on this No Buy path at a young age. There was no Internet then, so I did not have this kind of inspiration. I only had magazines and TV ads telling me to buy, buy, buy! 

But, why do all the No Buy people say they want to replace shopping with experiences? Shopping is an experience too! It a great experience and that's why we like it. I'm only giving it up to get rid of debt, because I know money makes me happy.  I grew up in 1970s suburban America. I grew up in a shopping mall and in K Mart. I was always at those places with my friends, searching for identity. So of course shopping is high on my list of experiences. 

THE SHOPPING EXPERIENCE-1970s-1980s

The Barbie Dolls and Barbie clothes at K Mart

Getting a mood ring at K Mart and feeling so cool 

The excited butterflies in the tummy, when pulling into the shopping mall parking lot

The bright lights and the smell of the Cinnabon store

The Waldenbooks, where you bought Laura Ingalls Wilder books, where you discovered Sylvia Plath

The record store, where you thumbed through record albums, and you discovered Blondie and Jacqueline du Pre

The Clinique counter, where the lady did your makeup and made you feel glamorous and grown up, and assured you Brooke Shields was nothing without her makeup 

The food! Arthur Treachers Fish and Chips, Morrisons Cafeteria with the fried chicken and buttery rolls and iced tea

All the latest issues of Teen and Seventeen magazine

The Super X drugstore with Sophia perfume, Vidal Sassoon shampoo, and Maybelline Kissing Potion

The movie theater where you saw The Turning Point seven times and fell in love with ballet (1977 the most magical year)

Orange Julius

Trying European cheese samples at the Swiss Colony

The ORLANE counter - the epitome of elegance to me 

The Stendahl counter - This was a really beautiful and expensive French cosmetics brand. The lady at the counter was French. I practiced my French with her and she sent me a little note in French later on. She was kind. I had cystic acne. It was bad. "Oh, I see you have a little but of acne. Not to worry, it just needs a bit of astringent and fond de teint." She was tactful and gave me nice samples. 

My first Estee Lauder GWP - I thought I was Princess Di - it had Cinnibar perfume

My first LANCOME GWP - I thought I was Princess Caroline. I was given Sun Touched Terra lipstick 

Princess Marcella Borghese

Germaine Monteil - Royal Secret

Alexandra de Markoff - I never did get to try that legendary foundation - department store cosmetics were rare and glorious treats

Adrien Arpel in her pre HSN days 

The Erno Laszlo counter. It was so mysterious. You could not buy from them unless you went through a kind of initiation. You had to get an analysis and buy a special kit. It was fascinating. Now they just have samples going in beauty sub boxes any old way - Dr. L would not be very happy. He wanted his beauty routines done right and they were quite unorthodox. See the book, The Natural Way to Super Beauty by Mary Ann Crenshaw to know more about this. 

And I could go on and on. Of course I had no credit cards then, no job, just a little allowance. So I was not really ever spending much, just having fun. It's when you're older and have credit and money that it becomes a problem. Now there's no money, no time to shop, K Mart and the malls are ghost towns. And don't get me started on how much more fun TV was back then. Even going to the library was so much fun. Now all is so dull, dull, dull! I just get up, go to my job, come home, eat dinner, go to bed, and hope that my No Buy will make me rich and happy one day. 

 
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I'm going to have one day a week off of work for a while! I have not had any vacation since I began my job in 2015. Is No Buy worth it if it lets you work less? Maybe! I think so! 

My hair has been a disaster, an absolute mess. It just needs better care. It is long, and I don't want to cut it until I use up all my backlog of hair products. It tangles so badly. I can't comb through the tangles, and they just build up into matted sections. It is just awful. Hair products don't help. My hair got really badly tangled and matted this week. My scalp was also irritated from using too much harsh shampoo. I decided to wait an extra day before washing it again, to let the natural oils soothe my dry and itchy scalp. Ironically, the natural oils also allowed me to detangle my hair, even where conditioners won't do it. It still took an hour and 40 minutes to get the tangles out, I kid you not, but at least I was able to do it. It's ironic that the solution to my problem wasn't buying a product, but just leaving my hair alone and letting my body heal itself. 

Also I just had a little haul, but don't worry - it's within my No Buy rules. Time to replace my deodorant. I got an Avon Rare Pearls roll on. Three years ago, I got a stack of Rare Pearls sample cards from the Avon lady, and I thought if I got the deo to match, it would finally motivate me to use them up.

While I was looking through the Avon site, I saw that Avon has some really pretty new dental care products. I got myself a really pretty pink toothbrush that has special bristles and Himalayan pink salt! I'm excited, because my teeth are bad and need more care, and this will be nice for me. It's been a while since I got a new toothbrush. The Avon lady had a code to get belif samples too - is belif part of Avon now? No - I jut checked - Avon was bought by the company that makes belif, apparently, and also makes History of Whoo! History of Whoo is one of my dream brands, and I've always wanted to try it. (It's an expensive, beautifully packaged Korean line of products that look like they are made for a Korean princess or empress.) Well that was a good guilt free haul! Very interesting and productive No Buy night.

 
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I have some more low quality photos to post! ?

Bottom photo shows my little Avon haul. You can see my Rare Pearls deodorant, and also my pink Himalayan salt infused toothbrush, from a Korean brand called Perioe. Also my belif samples. Very pretty little haul, making buying necessary hygiene items a little treat. (See post above - talks about how New Avon - the United States Avon - was purchased by a major, major Korean beauty company, and now has all kinds of beautiful Korean cosmetics along with the classics and Avon favorites! Very interesting development.)

Top photo: Finally finishing some little samples and starting some new ones from the stash!

  • I finished Freeman pink salt and cucumber masque packet (it took weeks to finish), and I'm now using the Eve Lom Rescue Masque mini tube. I love the Eve Lom masque. 
  • Finished the Porefessional mini, and ready to begin the Porefessional Pearl Primer sample. Excited to try that.
  • Only one more application left of Blow Pro Weather Girl mini and Yves Rocher Body Scrub mini! Finished the mini Yves Rocher At the Heart of Pine Trees Shower Gel mini, and have started using up the Argan Rose shower gel mini! 
My job is again encouraging voluntary cut in hours, so I'm working one day less per week. Also this week I lost a lot of time/income due to the flu. Everyone in my office has it. That's okay, because I'm going back to my seasonal job in about ten days! I'm so excited! I'm putting together a new timetable! That will help me pay off my credit card for sure. And I love the job. 

I even made a dentist appointment at a dental office I've been wanting to try. I'm trying to make the most of the extra time I have from the hours cut. Can't wait for March. 

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Staying motivated

I'm back in my second job now, and I feel really great and motivated. Last year at this time, I was on my shopping binge when it was time to start my second job. I did well on the second job last year, but it's a lot easier to focus on it while on No Buy than on shopping binge! Last night I kind of felt like getting a beauty sub box again, but I was afraid to look at them and see what the spoilers are as then I would be hooked on getting every different one. Thank goodness I found a really nice video from iseedee, my favorite beauty YouTuber, about using up old samples. She did an amazing job on the video - it is Goals 2016 - (Samples & Minis Edition) - MakeUp, Skincare, Perfumes, published January 19, 2016. I loved the video. It really does take ages to use up all the little samples and minis, if you have a lot of them. Still working on it. 

 
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