Spending Freeze Update
Alright everyone, I have a little update on how my spending freeze has been going! With finals and work I haven’t had a lot of time to go out and shoot new photos, so I thought I would give a short and sweet post on how I am doing two months after I declared that I was on a spending freeze. Full disclosure, I have not kept exactly to a spending freeze. As someone who loves fashion, and follows a lot of Instagram stores that only get clothing items for a limited time, I couldn’t keep exactly to it. But, I have come up with some newer tips to be able to stick to a budget much better.
For starters, in the last two months I have purchased a denim skirt, a t-shirt, and a pair of boots. Not exactly a super great start to the whole spending freeze idea. The skirt was the first denim skirt I have found that actually checked all my boxes in what i was hoping to find in a denim skirt. I have really loved the trend, but I haven’t found one that I liked and liked on me. So finding this one and snatching it up seemed to make sense. The t-shirt was a blue and red striped, distressed shirt from Dressed in LaLa, that is a limited edition. So since I had fallen in love with it, I made yet another exception. Last but not least: new boots. My black combat boots that I wear almost daily and had had for five years, split open in the bottom. So I found a great deal on some classic black Doc Martens that I purchased.
Now that it is two months later and I am once again trying to manage my spending, I have decided that going on a complete spending freeze is not the best idea. So! Below I have outlined a couple new tips that I think will work out better.
Budget- Instead of going completely cold turkey and not shopping a lot, set a spending budget for yourself monthly. What can you spend on clothes or beauty or both each month? And if you don’t spend it one month, let it roll over into next month, and even though you are still sticking to budget, you’ll feel like you get to spoil yourself even more.
Honey- This is a Google Chrome add on that allows you to get coupons and deals when online shopping. It’s free to download to your browser and whenever you are at checkout at an online store, it will pop up and ask if they can check for coupons. You say yes, and it checks for any available and non-expired coupons, and it also checks to see if there is an even better deal for the same item somewhere else. This is so helpful!
Thrifting- Once again, thrifting is your friend! Online thrifting or actual thrifting in whatever town you live in, can be amazing. You often have to hunt for a while to find good things, but you can find some super great items and you can get it for so cheap you will wonder why you haven’t done this more.
Will You Wear It?- This is a mental test you need to give yourself whenever you are about to buy something. Even if you like it, think about what you are going to wear it with and if you will wear it often enough to justify the purchase. If it super trendy, think about if this is something you will love even after this trend has passed. Is the quality worth the money you would be spending?
I hope this little update and some new tips has been helpful! Hopefully this strategy will also prove to be beneficial for me as I continue to save for an apartment!
Madey