At the tail end of last year I wrote a blog entry about addictive personalities and, following on from that, my own addictive personality.
Writing about it all got me thinking; I want to make some positive changes this year and I want to make changes to our finances. I want us to be better at saving and cleverer when spending but being a bit of an impulsive buyer does hinder that a little!
So I had a little think when the new year arrived. What did I want to achieve in 2018? What can I take from last year that I either want to improve on or want to start doing? As I wrote in my 2017 Year Review on my health and wellbeing blog, we had a tough year financially and while we have no clue how this year will pan out we are keeping everything crossed that issues with jobs and redundancies have been firmly left in 2017.
That being the case, I want to move forward and prepare ourselves better for such a situation happening again or for a rainy day or for just when we want to spend. I also want to be in firm control of expenditure and to know where every little penny goes.
So I thought I would set myself a challenge, a very tough one at that! I have put myself on a spending ban for the first three months of the year. I am not allowed to unnecessarily buy any clothes, accessories or shoes for myself until April 1st. This is a BIG DEAL for me.
I love clothes and fashion. It is my sport.
I am always good at budgeting for any new buys too; I donate clothes to charity and sell clothes to fund any new purchases I may want. I want to break my spending habit though and learn to appreciate what I already have. I want to truly learn the value of money by making more sensible purchases rather than just buying and not truly feeling the value of my new items. I also want my new fashion purchases to be a big treat and not for the need to feel a high or try and make myself feel better.
Looking in my wardrobe this week I realised there wasn’t very much - if anything - that I wanted to get rid of yet I know there is plenty more I would love to buy. That being said, like most women (and not doubt men) I probably only wear about 30% of my wardrobe. That is shocking. Especially when I am not prepared to part with the items I don’t wear. I have no reason not to wear them either as they fit me and I like them, I think I just ‘play it safe’ in my every day life attire.
The other reason I would like to do this is to set myself the challenge. I want to step outside of my comfort zone this year and break away from bad habits so this is a great way to start.
I am going to make the most of every item in my wardrobe and if I don’t wear something in that three months then it is going. Some stuff can be sold and the money go into savings and I will donate some to charity too.
I am really excited about this challenge and am planning on uploading as many new outfit combos as I can to my Instagram to keep me inspired. I plan on trying to keep the outfit ideas creative and fresh where possible!
If you want to follow me on my journey then you can do:
INSTAGRAM: @NickiKinickie
The original version of this post appeared on my blog HEADCASE.