May recap: Kind of a disaster.

May was kind of an expensive month. Mainly because I lost control of my spending (good thing the wedding road trip came in under budget), and also because the weather has been so nice lately & I can’t resist the call of the patio. But in my defense, we only get about 3 months of nice weather during the year, so I need to get  on the patio while the gettin’s good!

Let’s review my May goals:

Financial goals

• Contribute $192.30 biweekly to my Emergency Fund – Success!
• Put all “found money” toward my computer fund – Fail.
• No impulse purchases during the month – Massive fail.
• Record all spending in weekly reports – Massive fail.
• Review savings goals for 2012, make adjustments as necessary – Fail.

Personal goals

• Make a moving plan a la Daisy at Add Vodka - Fail.
• Use Domestic8d’s pretty meal planners to plan a week of meals  - Definite fail.
• Post 2x/week on the blog – Fail.
• Keep my nails in decent shape (no biting!) – Success!

Let’s just say May was a bust. It sucks to set goals and then have to mark almost all of them as failures. However, maybe this will teach me to keep my goals in mind when I’m doing my daily spending. June will have a definite spending plan along with reports and attempts to control my impulses. July means the move and purchasing new items for the apartment, and I want to be prepared for that.

Can you believe it’s almost June? How did May go for you? 

I have an Addictive Product Personality.

There are two problems I am constantly looking to solve in my beauty routine:

• Oily/Acne prone skin
• Fine, limp hair

What sometimes triggers my binge-shopping is that I’ll buy something from a certain product line for one of these problems, like it, and then decide that I need every other item from that product line so they can work together and make me look and feel awesome. This helps me justify almost any purchase.

I also obey rules, so when something says “this works best when you use [insert other product from same line] here”, I tell myself that whatever product I’m using is clearly suboptimal without its counterparts from the same line.

Previous product line obsessions include Bioderma, Korres, Bumble & Bumble and most recently, Lush.

In order to keep myself in check, I’ve decided no more trying new product lines for the foreseeable future. I can still tweak my current regimen (I may need to try a different Lush moisturizer and facewash combo, but those will be exchanges), but I’m not allowed to try anything new for the month of June. I have SO MUCH hair and face stuff! I do NOT need any more (what you can’t see in that picture is that I have another cabinet full of hair and beautification products).

Is there anything you can’t resist spending your money on? Do you bulk-buy certain product lines?

A PF Confession in lieu of a spending report.

This is kind of a hard post to write. I was laying awake a few nights ago feeling guilty about my most recent spending binge, and as I tend to do, I started snowballing. Eventually, I came to the realization that my spending is symptomatic of how I’m feeling in my personal life. I’m living above my means. I have money in my savings and will use it (along with my fun fund, because lord knows I had a lot of fun buying the stuff) to cover the gap, but the fact remains that I’m not actually spending within my paycheque constraints at the moment. I can’t handle the tightness in my chest anymore. I need to relax, and the way to do that is with a spending plan and some self-control. I received overtime pay from October to March, had a three-paycheque month in May, got my tax refund, and received my retroactive pay. There’s no more additional money coming in beyond my paycheques, and I need to check myself before I wreck myself. That’s not to say I didn’t use the extra money for my savings, but I definitely spent a lot of it too. I believe in using your money to have fun and live a little, but when it comes at the expense of other savings goals, then you have a problem.

Victoria Day Fluff: Nesting for the New Apartment.

A few recent developments in the apartment saga have left my move-in date less firm than I originally thought, so my moving plan is on the back burner right now. However, what I can post about is stuff I want to buy for the new place!

Spending Report: Road Trip Edition

I mentioned on twitter last week that I’d done so much spending and returning that there was no way I could do an accurate spending report. I was right, so I decided to report on the wedding we went to this weekend. I originally wanted to save $1000, but then I realized we were only going to be gone for four days, and there’s no way I would need to spend $250/day. I adjusted the savings amount to $500.

May 10: $40 dinner.

May 11: $20.16 scarf, $6.50 drinks at the wedding, $7 cab back to hotel.

May 12: $15 breakfast, $5.79 Tim Horton’s, $14.15 dinner, $73.50 bus tickets.

We ended up booking it back to Calgary on Sunday, and made it in time to catch the bus to Edmonton. It was easily 12 hours of travelling, but it was nice to be back on Sunday night and have Monday to relax and unpack. Expenses I’d already paid for include my half of the hotel ($129.00 voucher from Dealfind) and the gift card ($25.00). I moved the amount I’d spent this weekend from my savings over to my credit card right away.

Grand total: $336.10

I spent way less than I thought I would! We’ll see if I can keep that going this week, but it’s May long weekend and I’m anticipating many excursions to the patio over the next few days with the beautiful weather we’re having.

Do you have any plans for May long?