In 2014 I went on a bit of a makeup buying binge especially toward the end of the year.  I keep a detailed multi-tabbed Excel spreadsheet that tracks my beauty stash, including date of acquisition (I’ll devote a blog post explaining my spreadsheet in the future, I promise).  From the spreadsheet, I was able to determine that in 2014, I acquired:

• 22 blushes
• 56 eye shadows (I count individual shades in palettes, so a quad = 4 eye shadows)
• 112 nail polishes – I blame Illamasqua for this.  The counter inside The Bay was closing shop and the brand was leaving North America so I had to not only stock up on my favourites, but also take advantage of the 25-50% clearance sale!   I own a total of 46 Illamasqua nail polishes, and 39 of them were acquired in 2014…

At some point toward the end of the year, I realized that I really like my current stash and I truly wasn’t searching for “that next best thing”.  So No-Buy 2015 was instated.  What I’m trying to accomplish:

• Go through my “untrieds” (similar to those of you with unworn clothing in your closet still with the tags on them!)
• Finish up what I currently use
• Rediscover old favourites
• Not add to my current stash (or “clutter” as my bf calls it)
• Potentially purge items I don’t use

Mainly I’m focusing on not buying more cosmetics, and on a lesser extent, no unnecessary clothing and accessories.  I don’t typically have issues with buying a lot of clothes and accessories, but again, 2014 proved to be somewhat of an anomaly because one of my favourite clothing shops, JACOB Boutiques, went bankrupt.  Again, I just had to stock up and take advantage of the clearance sales!

It’s not one of the goals of my No-Buy, but a nice side effect of not buying unnecessary things is saving money.  I should mention here that I’m financially stable and shopping is not a financial problem for me – I have no debts and I have healthy savings for the future.  In fact, freeing up some of my spending on cosmetics and clothing in this year will mean I can channel that money toward other things (still pondering on what I can spend it on).

Here are the perimeters of my No-Buy 2015:

• No buying net new items in these categories:
  • makeup (including nail polish)
  • skincare
  • body care (including fragrance)
  • clothes [undecided if full year]
  • accessories (jewellery, shoes, purses) [undecided if full year]
• Replenishment of basics is fine (used up my face cream? Ok to buy a replacement)
• New items are allowed in product categories that I don’t currently own anything in, if I deem a newfound need for them (ie. physical exfoliant, lip scrub, brow tint)
• Buying presents in aforementioned categories for other people is ok (yes, this Marc Jacobs eye shadow palette is for “my friend”.  Honest.)

That’s it.  Pretty simple, right?  Right?!