Using More, Spending Less Challenge – March 2021 Results

Another month has gone by and you know what that means? It is time to share with all of you my results from the Using More, Spending Less Challenge for the month of March. I am not even going to get into how I found yet another weird name for this challenge. You are used to it by now, no? Maybe third time is the charm? So maybe next year there will be a better name for it? Who knows*shrug. What I do know is what March looks like and now so do you:

Purchases

You might get bored from seeing the same name over and over again. So feel free to skip this section. Don’t say I did not warn you.

Sinsay Makeup Sponge – £1.77

Sinsay Konjac Facial Sponge Lilac Hint – £2.29

Sinsay Rose Gold Hair Accessories – £1.58

Sinsay Makeup Sponge Kit 3 pieces – £2.8

Sinsay Place Green Makeup Sponger Set of 2 – £2.85

Sinsay Makeup Sponges Bauble of Minis – £2.81

Sinsay ‘Try Me’ Body Mist – £3.51

Sinsay Makeup Sponges Jar x 2 – £2.06 each so £4.12

Sinsay Set of 2 Makeup Bags – £4.75

Sinsay Hair 3 Invisble Bobbles x 2 sets – £2.53 (both)

Sinsay 10 Pastel Hair Ties x 2 sets – £1.9 (both)

Sinsay Pink Fake Nails Set – £1.58

Sinsay Set of 3 Peach Hair Clips – £0.95

Sinsay Set of 4 Pink and Black Hair Ties x 2 sets – £0.7 (both)

Sinsay Set of 3 Pink Glitter Nail Files – £0.95

Nivea Naturally Good Cotton Shower Gel  – £4.25

Nivea Naturally Good Aloe Vera Micellar Water 400ml – £6.61

Barnangen Oil Intense Body Cream – £4.92

Ritual of Jing Body Scrub – £10.94

Laneige Sweet Candy Lip Mask – £20.21

A’Pieu Hyaluthione Emulsion – £14.79

 Revox Rose Water and Avocado Oil Eye Cream – £5.22

Ziaja Hand and Body Wash 400ml x 2 – £2.9 each so £5.6 both

Ziaja Hand and Body Wash 200ml x 2 – £1.55 each so £3.1 both

Le Labo Santal 33 Shower Gel 237ml  – £8

Total spending: £118.93

Empties

SVR Hydraliane Legere – Intense Moisturising Cream 40ml – worth £15.25

Ziaja Hand & Body Cleansing Gel  – worth £3.65

Ziaja Sensitive Skin Wash for Face and Body Gel  – worth £3.59

Dr Barbara Sturm Hyaluronic Serum 30ml – worth £235

Sachajuan Hair Repair 100ml – worth £14

Dr Dennis Gross Skincare Hyaluronic Marine Dew It Right Eye Gel 15ml – worth £59

Sephora Collection The Make Up Cleansing Moisture Mask 2 Steps – worth £4.49

Douglas Hydrating Socks – worth £4.68

Living Proof Restore Hair Mask 28g – worth £4.56

So I used up £344.22 worth of product in March and as a result, my allowance from empties is £172.11.

Allowance from posts

Instagram -> 4 posts so £4

Allowance from reviews

Belif Pore Cleaner Blackhead Buster – read here

Sensai Cellular Performance Extra Intensive Mask – read here

Oh My Cream Cleansing Emulsion – read here

U Beauty The Super Smart Hydrator – read here

Suqqu Designing Colour Eye Shadow Palette – read here

BeautyPie Orange Absolute Eau de Toilette – read here

Allowance from review: £30

Total allowance from posts: £34

As mentioned above, this month I had a thing for Sinsay. The brand is pretty new to me. I have been shopping in their stores for less than one year and just placed my first ever online order. The stores are of Polish origins and they are available in various areas of the world. You should check them out if you live in Central & Eastern Europe.

For those who might not be familiar with it, Sinsay is like a smaller scale Primark (I assume all of them are smaller than any Primark, mine definitely is) or I do not know, a Riley Rose store perhaps. Sinsay offers clothing, beauty, house accessories and decor and some stationary and all of this in happy colours and prints. I personally really like it. Plus, their prices are incredible. IT surely does not help with my stationary addition. I purchased more pens in recent months than I have in all my school years (combined). I am pretty close to having to do one of these challenges for my stationary/supplies.

Recently Sinsay started expanding they beauty range and after getting a couple of makeup sponges from them, I had to build up my collection. Sure, I am not using any of them now, not really, but they were so cute and they sell out so fast. To my complete surprise, some of them are incredible actually. I am more than willing to throw away my beauty blenders for some of their makeup sponges. Yes, I do believe they are that good! Not all though, but most. The quality and consistency of the sponges varies across collections. So yes, I got a ton of makeup sponges which in the meantime I am using as decor. I washed them, dried them and put them all in a jar. Being all in colours that match, they look quite nice together. I got some other knick knacks and some beauty bags. The set of makeup bags I got was less than £5!! How amazing is that? Plus the quality is not at all bad and the bags do not feel cheap. Yeah, so I want cray cray on Sinsay. I am more than willing to admit it.

In addition to the huge lot of Sinsay stuff, I got some Nivea (a classic favourite brand of mine), some Ziaja (my collection of hand and body wash gels was running really low and they are sold out nearly everywhere) and then I finally got myself something from LeLabo in the Santal 33 scent. I never got the chance to try the fragrance and I know it is one of their bestselling ones. I am more partial to AnOther 13, but I am open to try new things. I had a voucher for £30 from Liberty so I decided to get the shower gel which would have cost me £38 otherwise so no, there is not a typo above. The pickings are incredibly limited for international delivery so I had to forgo my usual Davines and went for this product instead. We’ll see whether it was a good idea or not. That is if I ever get it. DHL has way too many forms for non-EU shipments…. I spent like an hour filling in the forms with the exception of one which I really hope they won’t need as I did not feel comfortable filling. Let’s hope it was worth it.

Okay, so now for the final results:

£172.11 (Allowance form empties) + £34 (allowance from posts ) – £118.93 (March’s Spending) – £2,231.35 (previous closing balance) = -£2,144.17

The results are looking a bit better, no? I am not going to say that I am on the right track so that I do not jinx it, but I am happy with the results. I believe that each month so far I covered the costs of my spending and then some, using the allowance from empties and/or the allowance from posts which is great. That is after all the scope of this challenge, one of them at least.

My overall negative balance is going down, well actually up, but yeah down. You know what I mean. I have less of a deficit. Better? 🙂 There is lots of progress to be made here, but I am happy. Let’s see what next month will bring.

How did March look for you?

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