February 2013 No buy/low buy thread

Jeffreestar cosmetics
Advertise with us
shop deals on amazon
Shop deals on ebay
Makeuptalk.com forums

Help Support Makeuptalk.com forums:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Originally Posted by Jeaniney /img/forum/go_quote.gif

wave.gif
  So in the last 5 months or so I've getting into makeup and I've realized I've been spending way too much money on it!  I use mint.com to track my expenses and my beauty purchases were one of my biggest spending categories, oops! I just recently finished grad school so I have tons of student loans and should be focusing on paying them back instead of buying more eyeshadows. haha.

I'm hoping this thread will help keep me accountable for my February low buy.  I already messed up a "no buy" by purchasing a couple of items from Hautelook's theBalm sale, but they were two items I had planned at purchasing at full price anyway, so I'm not mad at myself for getting them for half off.

My rules are pretty simple... don't buy any beauty related products unless they are at least 50% off and are things I wanted BEFORE seeing the sale.  Seems reasonable enough.

Wish me luck!!
Click to expand...
I totally know how that feels. I only started heavily getting into makeup within the last year and it's so hard not to get excited over everything. What I find helps me is really thinking about if what I want to purchase is going to get a ton of use. Yes it's nice to have fun colors to mess about with, but if I'm only using them once a year, I probably don't need them. 

 
I'm glad i'm not the only one that just got into makeup within the last year! I think that may be part of our problem, now we just want everything and to discover all the things we've been missing!

 
Originally Posted by JessicaMarie /img/forum/go_quote.gif

 What I find helps me is really thinking about if what I want to purchase is going to get a ton of use. 
Click to expand...
Exactly... I am trying to focus on quality over quantity. I would rather have a smaller collection of high quality products that I absolutely love than a huge collection of random things I bought on a whim.  So I have to cut out my "whim" purchases to afford the high quality things I really want!  

I make myself read a lot of reviews and have a "waiting period" to decide if I still want it a few weeks later.  It helped some in January, but I'm still recovering from my Black Friday/Cyber Monday purchases... 
10.gif
!

I have a few smallish Sephora giftcards to spend and that will tide me over until March... Yay, adulthood!

 
I guess I should make some rules too! It seems to be helping you guys and I need some stronger will power.

1. I can only buy a full size product after every project 10 pan (but my project pans include samples as one item...since i have mostly samples). This includes shampoo/conditioners

2. I can buy things if they are "free" (with my CVS bucks or gift cards or points) or basically free (if it costs only a couple of dollars)

3. I can only buy an eyeliner if I use up 5 (I have way too many...)

4. Things in my sample boxes don't count. But I do plan on skipping most of my Julep and BeautyArmy months unless there are things I don't already have offered.

5. My low buy also includes clothes/accessories

 
LOL I should set a no-buy rule for polish: no buying new polish until i've worn all the polish I bought in the last six months at least once... I think I'm probably at 15-20 bottles of untried polish here, maybe even more ^^;;

 
Originally Posted by Kyuu /img/forum/go_quote.gif

LOL I should set a no-buy rule for polish: no buying new polish until i've worn all the polish I bought in the last six months at least once... I think I'm probably at 15-20 bottles of untried polish here, maybe even more
Click to expand...
lol, I feel ya. I have about 150 bottles of polish and have probably only ever worn half, at the most.

 
I'm also joining in, doing a low-buy this month! Although I guess I should be doing a no-buy since I really don't need any new make-up. The problem is that if I start thinking 'I'm not allowed to buy anything new this month' or 'I can't buy make up' I get all anxious. But if I tell myself 'I can buy a couple of new things if there's something I really love (but there probably won't be)' I don't feel so stressed out. Does that sound weird, haha? I know that kind of thinking is something I really should work on...

I still think my low buy might just be successful since lately I've been more excited about getting close to finishing a product than buying a new one. Such an improvement! 

Originally Posted by Kyuu /img/forum/go_quote.gif

LOL I should set a no-buy rule for polish: no buying new polish until i've worn all the polish I bought in the last six months at least once... I think I'm probably at 15-20 bottles of untried polish here, maybe even more ^^;;
Click to expand...
Oh yeah, I'm definitely joining the polish no-buy. It takes ages to use up a bottle of polish - not sure if that's ever even happened to me. Besides, I pretty much only wear glittery topcoats on my finger nails since I'm too lazy to deal with chipping on a frequent basis so working through a regular polish takes ages. Sigh!

 
Thanks, Relique!

Part of what caused me to start my no-buy project was because I had to throw out a whole bunch of old products because they were allegedly past their expiration dates. But I was talking to my friend's Mother who is the head of a really high-end department store that sells makeup in my city and she said that the "expiry dates" on everything except mascara is just a marketing tool to make you go through your cosmetics faster. She said unless it's actually gotten chalky or smells bad, etc. it's probably fine.

I kind of figured this was the case, since most of the stuff I tossed still looked fine, but I didn't want to run the risk of getting a bacterial infection. Now I feel kind of upset that I threw out all of those fantastic products for no reason.

Though it does help to keep me on track with this, since I can't toss anything out for an excuse to buy new things.

 
I want these shoes:



But I need to hold out on buying them to make sure I'd actually wear them. Also holding out because I've got a Nordstrom Note coming to me which will be a big help in paying for them. My budget/no-buy/low-buy is ruined this month, and January was a disaster. I resubbed to PopSugar for fear of February being awesome, and did a LBB which turned out pretty good. My pell grant finally dispersed and gave me some money to play with. I paid off my Nordstrom card.. but I've got to live off the excess until my boyfriend gets back at the end of the month.

 
I havent bought anything yet, and since I cancelled two of my subs I think I will use that money towards getting a Lorac Pro Palette :) /emoticons/[email protected] 2x" width="20" height="20" /> that will be my reward

 
Originally Posted by Jeaniney /img/forum/go_quote.gif

wave.gif
  So in the last 5 months or so I've getting into makeup and I've realized I've been spending way too much money on it!  I use mint.com to track my expenses and my beauty purchases were one of my biggest spending categories, oops! I just recently finished grad school so I have tons of student loans and should be focusing on paying them back instead of buying more eyeshadows. haha.

I'm hoping this thread will help keep me accountable for my February low buy.  I already messed up a "no buy" by purchasing a couple of items from Hautelook's theBalm sale, but they were two items I had planned at purchasing at full price anyway, so I'm not mad at myself for getting them for half off.

My rules are pretty simple... don't buy any beauty related products unless they are at least 50% off and are things I wanted BEFORE seeing the sale.  Seems reasonable enough.

Wish me luck!!
Click to expand...
Lots of similarities! I've got into makeup 5 months age and I've been going nuts with my purchases too. I sign up for mint.com in december and I've been spending just as much as beauty stuff as I have been on necessities (which I think is a bit much). I just wanted to collect everything but now I'm finally realizing that I need to slow down and that I do not need everything. I'm in grad school so I really need to slow down my spending.

My goal was to not buy anything this month but I brought some stuff from Sephora 
frown.gif
. So now my goal is to not buy anything until March 15 - I'll be in Chicago and I don't know if I can not spend anything on beauty or clothes.

 
So far so good this month, and here are all the things that were almost empty at the end of last month but are now official empty and in the trash!



 
Doing quite well. Since I'm aiming for a low buy, I figured out an appropriate budget and then a few things I think I might want. Having the money set aside seems like it's going to be really helpful. :D /emoticons/[email protected] 2x" width="20" height="20" />

 
I decided to use my $70 beauty budget on the Urban Decay sale. I decided that I'd rather have those things instead of any of the Oz palettes. I also told my husband I didn't need either for Valentine's Day either, so he got me the new Skyrim DLC instead.

I've used up my allotment for the month! I've also finished a few more items, so yay! More and more going into the empties bag. 

Also, I've found that only keeping a small makeup bag out and switching out products every few days or so has helped me feel like I've got 'new' stuff. It really isn't (I've had some of it for years!), but since I haven't seen some of this stuff in so long, it really feels that way.

And watching the pinksofoxy videos has really, really helped, too. I'm stuck at home sick today, so I'm thinking I'll go through my sample drawer and clear that sucker out. 

 
I haven't bought anything - yay! I canceled Ipsy and I have empties. This is a patterrn of mine - I do really good for awhile and then I suddenly go crazy & buy way too much.



 
I haven't bought anything yet this month but of course I just saw a review of a new blush on temptalia and I want it.  Must. Resist.Temptation!!

I seriously need to stop reading beauty blogs!!

 
Originally Posted by lioness90 /img/forum/go_quote.gif

Lots of similarities! I've got into makeup 5 months age and I've been going nuts with my purchases too. I sign up for mint.com in december and I've been spending just as much as beauty stuff as I have been on necessities (which I think is a bit much). I just wanted to collect everything but now I'm finally realizing that I need to slow down and that I do not need everything. I'm in grad school so I really need to slow down my spending.
Click to expand...
Wow that is a lot of similarities! I guess that's why we both ended up here! Haha

Also I just wanted everyone to know I found something I wanted on sale (free shipping too!) but then I thought really hard about it and... I talked myself out of it!  There is a different (similar) product I am planning to buy next month and my "great deal" would probably be pushed to the back of my drawer never to be seen again.

Hooray for self control and not taking the "sale" bait! 
claps.gif


 
I need to start using my samples, I dont have any subs right now so maybe after I use over half of them I'll sub back. That is my plan thought, lets see if I stick to it

 

Latest posts

Back
Top