Another month in the books. Since this is basically a personal lifestyle blog, I try to mix in a bit of diary-like posts here and there. These posts are not my usual “guideline” or “top tips” content but rather just an update on things I care about and love to talk about.
I am not a financial expert, I’m just a normal girl who incurred tons of debt to pursue a career that I wanted and now I’m on the other end dealing with the financial aftermath. I just wanted to be candid and transparent about my student loan experience so this monthly spend report series is something I intent on continuing along with my “debt diary” which I generally draft at each notable milestone in my loan repayment.
Lets have a look at my spending for November:
1. The Sephora VIB Sale ($360) – this one got me this year. I shopped the sale in May and I did it again during the winter sale. Now that we are home more often I find that gives me a chance to use more masks and skin care items that I wouldn’t normal use. Truthfully, although makeup has become rare for me, my skincare game has really been elevated. Not sure if its the “treat yourself” theme of this year (especially given this pandemic), but I spent a lot more this month than I planned to on skincare and beauty. I likely won’t do another haul until the next sale (I’m going to try to only shop at Sephora during these sales or when I really need to).
2. Clothing and shoes ($400) – another weakness of mine if of course clothes. I don’t know why I LOVE buying clothes so much. So much so that even in the face of a pandemic where we are all obviously going nowhere anytime soon, I feel the need to buy clothes and plan outfits just for the fun of it. Thankfully, everything I have purchased this month was on sale. I bought a cute sweater jacket Poshmark that I really wanted from J crew but instead of paying $200 for it I was able to get it for $60. I also shopped the Aritzia sale and the Abercrombie sale. I have a few items that are going back so this grand total will probably end up being less.
3. Treat yourself coffees/meals ($60) – I’ve been consistently rewarding myself on fridays with a starbucks holiday drink and a snowman cookie Although $60 on this habit sounds ridiculous, this is combined with the impromptu drive through fast food meal and I feel like this spending is super conservative given what I used to spend on meals for post-work dinner and drinks.
As my blog evolves I am trying to chronicle this “spend report” style in a way that I can look back on so I’m going to be putting ball park numbers of the totals I’ve spent on these categories to keep myself accountable and honest. Most categories won’t be on here especially when its something generic and boring (like groceries or my phone bill for example) this is more for the non-essentials I guess you can call it.