5 tips & tricks to saving money 💸

Hi beauties,

So every January we all make resolutions and let’s face it who actually successfully keeps their new year’s resolutions??  Well long story short my resolution was to save money in 2017 so at the end of the year I can go on a lovely and relaxing holiday! Fast forward to July and all I can say is that I have not saved as much as I have projected to have accumulated by the half way point of 2017! 

I was never successful in staying on a “NO BUY” which is something I have been trying to do every single year without fail! If you a serious makeup enthusiast, blogger or beauty Youtuber we all have one thing in common we always feel the need to buy the latest and greatest beauty product that is getting released every month just so we can have a new item to talk about- the pressure is real ladies. Over the few years I have tried to do no buys but it just made me feel unmotivated to post new reviews on “old” items. However I have learnt to discipline myself and I have learnt to say NO to myself when I am strolling down the makeup section of Dischem. Often at times I feel the beauty community can be a cut throat industry we are almost always pressurised into buying new beauty items just to “fit in” does anyone else feel that way?? 
I gave up on trying doing a makeup NO buy, however I have implemented a few steps when I go shopping so that I can resist spending on things I don’t really need at this very moment. In this post I will be sharing with you my top five tips and tricks that helped me save a few rands and didn’t put a strain on my bank balance. 💰

• TIP ONE: RESEARCH

When it comes to shopping I can be quite the frugal shopper, but my weakness is makeup and when it comes to shopping for makeup I become an impulse shopper. So now what I have adopted into my routine before I go shopping is research on what I possibly want days if not weeks in advance before I actually decide to get the items. Getting new products can be so appealing and it almost gives you the sense of urgency that you MUST have the product right NOW! But by simply researching and reading a maximum of ten reviews on the product will help you decide whether you must have the certain product. At times products are advertised well, over promoted and falsely hyped about by an influencer and it gives us the urge to purchase it only to be left disappointed majority of the time! Has that ever happened to you??

• TIP TWO: TAKE STOCK OF WHAT YOU ALREADY HAVE

I suggest you look at what you already own. I am guilty to committing this mistake. Many of times I have purchased a bunch of lipsticks only to come home and realise that hey I have three more from a different brand that come close to the one I just bought 🙈. It is important to remember that no products are the exact same BUT they are similar. Therefore it is always good to organise your stash so you will also recall what shades you already own so that you won’t go out buying another nudey- brown lipstick. 

• TIP THREE: PROJECT PAN

Another New Year resolution of mine was to implement a “project pan” regimen in my saving money project. I am proud to say that I have not bought a new eyeshadow palette since the start of this year. What project pan basically entails is hitting pan and finishing eyeshadow shades that we already own. Let’s face it who out there has an eyeshadow palette which you actually finished and by finished I mean you used up every single shadow in that palette??  The last palette I purchased was the slays for days palette which was last year June or so when it had just launched and I kid you not just two weeks ago I hit pan on ONE shadow out of 35 shadows. This project pan concept can be adapted to anything whether you a foundation hoarder even if you obsessed with perfumes.

• TIP FOUR: SAY BUY TO LIMITED EDITIONS

We are all suckers for limited editions but what we fail to see is that limited editions is just that LIMITED. When the likes of MAC drops their limited edition lippie or highlighter in collaboration with some celeb let’s be honest ladies we would head out that door in our PJ’s if we could help it just to get our hands on that one product which most likely you wouldn’t get in a year from now. Now don’t get me wrong I am NOT saying don’t go buying limited editions, you can, but in all honesty you don’t need EVERY limited edition that gets released. 

• TIP FIVE: TAKE A WALK BEFORE HEADING TO THE CHECKOUT

This is a tip my very wise boyfriend taught me to do- shoutout to bae 😘!! Like I mentioned earlier my weakness is makeup so when I do go to Dischem I fill up my basket with whatever I absolutely NEED and I also put in a few items I would WANT but don’t actually need. When I know I am ready to  head to the tills to pay before I actually go there I take a walk through the entire store to make a final decision on whether I really need that item/s in my collection at that given time or is it something I can acquire at a later on stage. 95% of the time the items I don’t really need urgently are getting put back onto the shelf.  Another trick I use every time is that I set myself a budget of say R400 and I make sure to have that amount in CASH so I know I have a limit and I cannot go over that limit. 

So these are my top five tips and tricks to saving money especially if you are like me and you are not dedicated or disciplined enough to do a makeup no buy. Let me know down in the comments if you have ever done a makeup no buy and were you successful with it??  Also let me know what are your tips to controlling your spending?? 
Thank you so much for reading sorry for the long post, I hope you enjoyed my tips and tricks that have certainly worked for me.

Until my next post ❤

Bye for now…