Using more, Spending Less Challenge Results – April 2023

Beauty Shopping ban by Nana


Another month has passed and as such it is time to post the new results of my ongoing monthly beauty spending challenge. This month is definitely not going to be as exciting as the previous one, but it is definitely soemthing…

I do not even know what to say anymore so let’s jump straight to the results.

Are you ready?

April’s Purchases

  • Esfolio Green Tea Pure Skin Sheet Mask x 1 – £1.16
  • Esfolio Collagen Pure Skin Sheet Mask  x 2 – £2.32
  • Lululun Pure Beauty Face Mask Moist Blue 36 sheets – £13.55
  • Lululun Pure Beauty Face Mask Balance Pink 36 sheets – £18.61
  • Kahi Wrinkle Bounce Multi Balm – £26.71
  • AESTURA Atobarrier 365 Cream 80ml – £10.68
  • Pyunkang Yul Eye Cream (1ml X 50ea) – £4.02
  • ROUND LAB Moisutrizing Sun Cushion SPF 50+ PA++++ – £12.07
  • Acropass Trouble Cure (skin cleanser 6ea+trouble cure 6 patches) – £4.82
  • Tiam Surprise B Patch (7mm x10ea + 10mm x 5ea + 12mm x 9ea) – £1.61
  • TOCOBO Cotton Soft Sun Stick SPF50+ PA++++ – £10.46
  • Be The Skin BHA+ PORE ZERO Serum 30ml – £0.8
  • KAHI Aqua Balm – £25.11
  • JM Solution Water Luminous S.O.S Ringer Multi Balm Black – £16.90
  • Mary & May Collagen Peptide Vital Mask – £15.07
  • ROUND LAB 1025 Dokdo Toner 200ml – £11.72
  • ROUND LAB Birch Juice Moisturizing Serum, 50 ml – £16.75
  • Mixsoon Bifida Ferment Essence  – £16.19
  • Mixsoon Soondy Centella Asiatica Essence – £15.47
  • Mixsoon Reishi Mushroom Essence  – £15.47
  • Mixsoon Pan Ginseng Root Essence  – £15.47
  • Mixsoon Centella Toner – £10.62
  • Beauty Drops Niacinamida + Zinc PCA Gel Cream – £9.05
  • SVR Labs Mat + Pores Sebiaclear Mattfying Cream 40ml – £6.22

In April I ended up spending a total of £280.95 on beauty products.

April’s’ Empties

  • Lucia Magnani Purifying Energising Cleanser 125ml – worth £75
  • Tiziana Terenzi Cassiopea Extrait de Parfum 15ml – worth £39
  • Ziaja Hand and Body Wash 400ml – worth £1.93
  • Keenonicks Camo Cleansing Pad – Cabbage & Moringa One-Step  – worth £15.67
  • Allies of Skin Mandelic Pigmentation Corrector Nigh Serum Travel Size 8ml – worth £29
  • BeautyPie Truple Hyaluronic Acid Elastic Lifting Eye Serum – worth £14.30
  • Bath and Body Works Rose Water and Ivy Hand Sanitizer Spray – worth £3.51
  • Bath and Body Works Gentle Foaming Hand Soap in Brilliant Blue Sky Fresh as a Daisy – worth £7.04
  • Bath and Body Works Gel Hand Soap in Japanese Cherry Blossom  – worth £4.39
  • It’s Skin Tiger Cica Green Chill Down Toner 400ml – worth £10.33

In April I ended up emptying £200.17 worth of products. This resulted in an allowance of £100.08.

Allowance from posts

Allowance from Reviews – £100

Allowance from Social Media – £4

  • Instgaram Post – £1
  • Instgaram Reel – £3

Total allowance from posts: £104

£100.08 (allowance from empties) + £104 (allowance from posts) – £280.95 (April’s Spending) – £3,135.39 (previous closing balance) = -£3,212.26

Sometimes I wonder why I am still doing this challenge. What is the point, right? My results are looking worse and worse with every passing month.

It is ridiculous, no?

Well, I do keep on going and insist on publishing this article that most people do not read because I am sure that without it, I would go even more off the rails. Now, I am at least still hanging on and trying. Without this monthly challenge, I would ignore just how bad my spending can get at times.

In happier news, I am freaking proud of myself for being able to cover most of my beauty expenses through my reviews. No, before someone asks me, nobody is paying me for writing the reviews and I rarely get any commissions from review posts (it happened like 5 times in all these 12 years I have been blogging). I am “paying” myself or rather rewarding myself for my work. It takes me around 2 hours to write a short review which often does not even include the time it takes to take the amateurish photos I use. Getting 5 pounds per review is reasonable, no? I mean my hourly rate at work is several times higher after all and time is time regardless of the type of work one does.

In terms of spending, I did work a bit too much this month and I have way more work to do before I am done. Scratch that! I will never be done but I do have to deliver the projects I am currently working on in May. Safe to say that I was majorly stressed and some things on a personal level did not make things any easier. Stress does indeed seem to be a catalyst for me and leads to some retail therapy.

Additionally, I decided to try four new shops. One of them you already know about – Style Korean which I talked about in this post. However, I also tried two local stores and another international one which I will talk about a bit later.

I do not regret my purchases but I do need to be even more careful moving forward as my stash levels are out of control. I ended up storing beauty products on two shelves that run along the length of my bed that I rarely touched – like in the past ten years they looked more or less the same – filled with the same books and all. There have been very few exceptions of me adding more items to them. Mostly because I am terrified of another incident – when I was younger the top shelf dislodged and all the storage boxes fell on top of me. Luckily, I was reaching for a book and my head was right underneath the first shelf… I am scared to think of what could have happened. There is a long story behind those shelves, but safe to say that I tried storing the minimum number of items possible regardless of how much we improved their support system over the years. Anyway, putting more items on these shelves or rather having to put more items on top of these shelves is a bit problematic. It denotes that I am running out of space.

But no, no regrets so far. Just excitement at the thought of trying out all these new goodies!

How did you do in April?

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4 Comments

  1. O
    Reply

    I think it’s worth keeping the challenge as it helps to keep track of spending / the stash size. For me it’s also interesting to see the changes throughout some period of time.
    My stash keeps growing and I’m nowhere as disciplined in my no buy as I’d like to, but it’s OK:) the advent calendar period will be a challenge because I set myself a goal in terms of the stash size to reach before there’s room for any new big purchase but I’ll most likely not reach that goal (it’s to reduce the stash by 110 items now, excluding all sorts of samples, also perfume samples, as well as single use products such as sheet masks or foreo ufo masks) so I’ll see what happens. Depends on the offer too. Hopefully it’s not interesting for me this year 🙂

    1. Nana
      Reply

      I understand. My discipline this year has also been kind of lacking. I am pretty sure I already spent the amount I spent in the entire last year 🙁 interesting approach to keeping track! If one day all my products will once again reside in the same place I will take it up as well! Hopefully if I can ever start again from somewhere closer to zero. Good tip though!

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