That is Strange

 

Well, party time with finances has come to an end for the next month. I have done some damage to my bank account with Afterpay and now, I have to seriously take some stock. Afterpay reintroduced the nothing down and I stupidly started to take advantage of it. Right now, things have started to come in and have to really budget for the next two, maybe three weeks. I would rather not use up the last of my savings to pay Afterpay. I haven't added anything new to Klarna, Zip or Affirm and that is probably a good thing. I don't have any payments on Klarna that are coming up until September and my Affirm payments are technically not this paycheck but the next but I don't want to pay both Affirm and Afterpay in the same week, it is just not going to work. I know that I can manage the next two or three weeks to begin to really get myself back on track with my finances. But it is still hard to make changes, especially when the executive dysfunction decides it is going to be a bigger brat and when the depression starts to creep in, it can be a recipe for disaster. The one thing that is making me somewhat happy is that Ulta has a huge multiplier promo going. Ten points for every dollar spent. I had a $30 gift card and I managed to only go over by 15 cents. That is a little bit of progress. I have gotten a brush and sponge cleaner (my brushes and makeup sponges are pretty dirty), a face wash and some cotton rounds. I couldn't justify another lipstick, and eye shadow. Perfume was really out of the question and I am banking the $182 in rewards. I want to get up to $250 in rewards and have a blowout perfume run at the end of the year.

 What is funny in terms of perfume is that my mother has started to have a liking for the long discontinued Deneuve. I wore it a few days ago without any regard for anyone else. I haven't worn Deneuve in a long time. On my work days, I am working on using up my bottle of Cheirosa 62 and travel sprays of Infusion d'iris and BDK Gris Charnel. I am getting a little bit fixated of the vintage version of Bal a Versailles and I haven't worn that in forever. It's just so many that I haven't worm in forever and trying to start wearing again. But back to Deneuve. Deneuve has made my mother nauseous and I couldn't wear it. When I pulled it out and started to wear it again, my mother has really started to like Deneuve and I find it funny. My mother has never much cared for Deneuve but now she does. But for the longest time, she has worn Light Blue and a few other Dolce and Gabanna offerings and still wears a lot of it. But right now, she has branched out into wearing Flowerbomb. She enjoyed it so much, she went to Fragancenet for a bottle. But my mother still hates Coromandel, Mitsouko and a couple others. She says that they make her queasy, too strong, and dated. I am thinking that Light Blue is becoming dated and too many people are wearing it. I will have to say that both Mitsouko and Coromandel require a light hand though.

It is Starting to Feel Real

My trip to California is starting to feel real. It hit me that I have a shade over two months of waiting. I am close to paying off Afterpay and Klarna and at this point, I want to pad my checking account a little more but still have a good amount in my savings. 

But I had to really think about a couple other things. One is which BNPL cards do I want to take. Do I take Klarna or Affirm? I am leaning towards Klarna due to it's higher limit and I can use it in more places. But the decision that I made in the past 12 hours is to apply for a credit card. A pre approval from Capital One came in the mail. For the past month, Capital One has been sending me some letters about a pre approval and when I thought about it, getting a credit card for my trip might be a wise idea. With my lousy credit, I didn't expect any kind of approval. To my surprise, I was given the Quicksilver One. It might be a $300 limit with a $39 annual fee but I will take it. I hope that I won't mess this one up. I will have to remind my sister that I don't have tons of money and say that I have been working on getting a couple things squared away in terms of finances.

I am still thinking of which perfume I am going to take. I don't expect to go and do any kind of perfume shopping or sniffing during my trip. My idea of taking that vintage bottle of no 19 edp still stands. It will be hot when I will be in California and it would probably be a great idea to just finish that bottle. I could take that bottle of Nasomatto Nuda or Number One Intense but I think that I should take only 1 bottle. Since I will be traveling by my lonesome, maybe on the way back, I can check out duty free. Doesn't mean that I buy anything but if I remember, I will take a look.

In my using things up resolution, I used up more stuff. I used up the little bottle of the Lush Sleepy body wash and a little bottle of the Cheirosa 62 body wash. Now if I could use up the lotions, I would feel better. I found a little dabber sample of Serge Lutens MKK and decided to use that up if nothing else, just get rid of it. I still have to larger decants of MKK. The upside is that I am not buying more stuff to drag into the house and setting myself back when more than I already have. If I could find a way to use up those lotions even faster, it would be a great thing.
 

Sick and Stuff

So I have been sick since last Thursday and I am looking at going to my local walk in first thing. This is starting to look like a case of bronchitis but we shall see. All I know is that I haven't been able to sleep for the past two nights. It seems like as soon as I drift off, I have another asthma attack and then it's a nebulizer treatment. I probably should have gone yesterday or today. So I haven't been able to wear anything scented outside a little bit of the Cheirosa 62 lotion. So that means that any serious perfume wearing is going to have to wait.

It was a sad Monday for me. I had to do some cancellations. Two of the three subscriptions that I had, I had to cancel. I have no regrets about canceling Walmart Plus. For what I was paying, it wasn't worth the price. It was either half of what I ordered would be out of stock or my groceries would never arrive. The order would be delayed with no way knowing when anything would come and it seemed like every time you turned around, I had ordered groceries. So was wasn't too upset over that. The one that had to be cancelled was Barkbox. I had Barkbox for at least 12 years and my dogs always lit up when it came. So it's probably going to be around Thanksgiving or Christmas when I can probably get Barkbox again. People say that my dogs won't notice but I think they do when they have had something come for them every month. Today was the last Barkbox box that came. So I am saddened that I had to cancel Barkbox. The grand total might be a shade under $50 but I would have liked to hang on to Barkbox. But there are a few things that have to wait right now.

What I am waiting for is when Sephora will have their spring sale event. I am not holding my breath for the pure parfum version of no 5 to come back into stock. I set aside $25 in a Sephora gift card for a cheap bronzer and find something for my mother to round out her mother's day gift. I already have her birthday gift but I like to do a little grab bag for mother's day. Mother's day is always a week or week and a half before her birthday so it's a pick wisely on what to give her and when.

Trying to be Smart

 

The past few days have been pretty interesting for me. The federal tax refund did get deposited into my bank account and I did deposit that check. I did want to go on a major spending spree but didn't. I decided to be a little more responsible and open a savings account and put some money in there.

I was looking to see if I could pay for both that crown my tooth desperately needs and get that plane ticket to California. Turns out that what the dentist sent in to my health insurance was the before x-ray instead of a post root canal x-ray. So we are going to see if that will work for getting insurance to cover that crown. I was fully prepared to pay that $600 and just be done with it. But I still stuck that $600 into that savings account, just in case. When I tried to see what kind of flights were available and how much it was to go to California. My dad said to hold off on that. I would rather have it done and over with since the closer to spring break, the greater the risk of prices going up and maybe way up but of course, nobody really wants to listen. So I have set myself ahead with some other things in terms of money and see what bill is coming up and take care of it.

You want to know something wild? For the longest time, Sephora did not carry any MAC lipsticks or makeup in general. There is the very real possibility that I never much paid attention to a whole lot outside of Too Faced or Urban Decay for a very long time. But when I discovered MAC lipstick and foundations from YouTube, I started to pay attention to other brands of makeup. For the longest time, I knew that ULTA was the only store close by that sold MAC stuff in store and online. So I was getting MAC stuff from Ulta. So now Sephora has MAC and since Sephora is having or has a makeup point multiplier going on, I got one of those mini lipsticks, which will be great for my trip to California. The most I am packing, makeup wise is a lipstick, lip balm and mascara. I know that it will be probably hot and can't justify a full face of makeup for the trip. I still haven't made a decision on which perfume(s) I am going to take but it is probably that bottle of no 19 edp that has just about next to nothing in it and maybe a travel spray. But who knows.

The Only Time I Feel Like a Millionaire

 It's that time of year again. The time of year where you either owe or get a refund. It's tax season and I just filed my taxes. For me, it's the only time where I feel like a millionaire because I get a refund. Since I don't have dependants, my refunds are small. This year's tax refund is a little bigger.

On one shoulder, I have a voice saying that I should get one of the many perfumes that I haven't bought yet but really want and the other shoulder, I have the sensible voice saying that I can't do that. With a larger cellphone bill and I am making sure that this year is the year that I follow through with bankrupcy. I scoured the Ohio missing money website and saw that I did have something and it is a fairly big amount. With the tax refund and that "missing money", I would have enough to pay a lawyer for the bankrupcy and have enough left over to pay for my larger cellphone bill and not have to worry so much. Plus, I am on the using up decants and sample challange. So I don't exactly want to go adding more full bottles or decants to my collection.

One of the bottles of perfume that I really want is a larger bottle of no 5 parfum and the other is a current version of no 19 edt or maybe the parfum version of Coco. There are some niche bottles that I would like but I am drawing a blank on which one would I like the most. Maybe I will go with an Andy Tauer offering but the perfume buying is going to be much farther down the road.

Saving Money Sucks...Kinda

Ever since I made the decision to file for bankruptcy, I have been making some strides in saving money. What is pretty much making me save money is the fact that it's in my best interest to get a lawyer for the bankruptcy. They know the ins and outs of this stuff and I don't.

Since tax day happened almost 10 days ago, I have only gotten my state refund and tomorrow I will getting the federal refund. In years past, I would have plans for that those refunds. Those plans were spending it but I had a plan to spend it on certain things. The first thing was to pay my cellphone bill and get some dog food and the rest would be spent on candles and perfume. But that's pretty much gone and the refund is going for the lawyer and bankruptcy fees. It is hard to see that money sitting in my bank account and I can't spend it. Well, I can spend it but it's not a very wise idea.

So this saving money thing kind of sucks. I've had to say no to a few candle sales, I've had to tell my perfume to buy list that they are going to have to wait a while. I mostly by passed the Sephora spring sale and only got a hand lotion and lip gloss. Yes, I want to get those things but I can't quite justify blowing any kind of money on fun things. I am allowing some fun things but I have to keep an eye on the cost and how often I am doing those fun things. I have had to restructure my grocery shopping and tried to cancel my Barkbox subscription. Barkbox is only allowing me to skip 2 months of Barkbox. I might not exactly be thrilled and it's on a couple levels. They made it damn near impossible to just cancel and not so thrilled not to see my dogs tear around the house with their new toys every month. But I think that it's mostly the little purchases that get me in the end. It's not like things were almost 10 years ago. I was working more and that meant that I had more disposable income and credit cards. And that was the beginning of many years of money mismanagement. And now I am paying for that 10 plus years of money mismanagement. I hope things will get a little bit better and I am able to ignore the Bath and Body Works semi annual sale. I would really like to finish off some of my candles before I get more of them.
 

Getting Back to the Basics

Since I have made the decision to declare bankruptcy and working on scrapping together the money for stuff related to that, I am starting to get back to some basics. I mean really starting to get back to basics.

These past couple weeks have been really hard. Bath and Body Works had a BOGO candle sale and 2 of those 40% off everything in the store sales. I only participated in the first one and that was it and I did get a little bit and that little bit was no more than $25. I had to draw the line somewhere and what I want to start doing is start using up my candle collection. This spring and summer, I really want to make a dent in my collection. Spring is on the way and with working 3 days a week, I believe that I can make a decent dent in my 84 count candle collection. What is working in my favor is that even though there is that Bridgerton collection, I did get the Diamond of the Season single wick candle. If I am not to impressed with that candle, I don't think that I would be too impressed with the others. By September, I want to get down to under 60 candles. I figure with the the temps creeping up and the notion of being able to leave windows open, I can have 2 candles going at a time. If I have 2 candles going on at once, it's probably going to have to be the single wick ones only.

The only thing from Ulta that I am probably going to be buying are the Tula hair, skin, nail and gut health gummy vitamins. I have to remember that I am trying to save money to get rolling on the bankrupcy but I also have to really watch myself during the whole process. I don't want to get the stink eye from anyone and not have it go through. I want to able to explain everything that I can, even though the lawyer said that a trustee is really making sure that I am not hiding assets or money and that I really am broke.

Even though I am on a full bottle no buy type of deal I did partake in the Luckyscent sale but I had only gotten myself a travel spray of the BDK Tuberose Imperial and a rollerball of Clinique Happy in Paradise. Those are birthday gifts so those can be explained, I think that any gift giving that I do, has to be a modest amount. I am almost tempted to hang on to the Happy one even though I have so much of the original Happy as it is.

But where I have really gotten back to basics is with my perfume collection. I've started to really go back to wearing my Chanel perfumes and to a lesser extent, some of my Amouage perfumes. I've been wearing a whole lot more of no 5 and some Coco Mademoiselle. On days off, I have been wearing tons of either Lyric or Epic. But I am trying to see what full bottles I can use up as well. I think that it would be a pretty wise idea to see what perfumes that I can use up and make my collection a little smaller and a little more manageable. So I think that I should start to focus more on 2 or 3 perfumes and see what I can do with finishing some more bottles. But I think I am going to go with the smaller bottles first. I think that I ought to start using up my decants as well.

I do kind of hate having to watch the spending because I am overhauling my life due to money. I got depressed, buy this and you will feel better. I got bored or there was a good sale on something and I would buy something. It's the frivolous spending that gets me and that has to change. I have had to put up some boundaries with the people that I live with. Just because I work at a grocery store, I can't keep buying groceries for family members and not get the money upfront. The excuse of "it just popped into my head and we do need this" can't fly anymore. It's the little expenses that keep happening is wasteful and the wasteful spending just can't happen right now. But I want to see what I can do with the smaller changes right now.
 

The Hard Decision

Today, I had to make a very hard decision to declare bankruptcy. I am meeting with a lawyer to discuss the next few steps tomorrow morning. 

This step was probably a year in the making but for a good year, I pretty much stuck my head in the stand but with some things being as they are, I can't afford to put off this next step any longer. My mental health has really been struggling these past few months. I've been agonizing over this decision for a couple months. I can't take the constant phone calls and all kinds of threats anymore. I am still trying to make this a better year for myself and it's still questionable at this point. This means that I am probably won't be buying much of anything outside of bare bones basics for at least 4 months. Any full bottle purchases are on hold.

I have always struggled with autism and mental health and one of my biggest downfalls is overspending and executive functioning. Most of the time, I can only think a week ahead of time, two if I am lucky. If something is a month away and I need to save $200, it never happens. Ulta or Bath and Body Works is having a fabulous sale, I'm spending money. I will spend money on things that I don't need but yet don't have the money for the things that I need, like paying my cellphone bill or groceries. I am trying to make some changes now but for the next few months, there will be more drastic changes but I don't know what they will be. Quite frankly, at this point, I'm scared. The only things I own that people might be interested in would be my candles, perfume and maybe some jewelry. Okay, the only thing people might be interested in is the jewelry but I don't have much of that. I don't have anything in terms of assets but the fact remains is that filing bankruptcy scares the shit out of me. I am wondering on what I will be able to do and not do during the whole process.

I still intend to blog about perfume and many things but I might not be blogging a whole lot. Or my blog might take a different direction.

 

I've Changed My Mind...Sort Of

Earlier this year, I have made some resolutions. The first one was not to buy anymore candles. I failed pretty early on but I got back on the band wagon. I haven't really been using my candles so much but when the weather gets warmer, I will start using them. My candles have been a bone of contention at my house and the only time I can have them lit is if I have a window open. Since we are in the ugliest part of winter, it's not a wise idea to have windows open. So I have to wait until the temps warm up and will stay warm before I can have a candle continually lit.

My second resolution was to limit myself to buying only two full bottles of perfume this year. Those bottles could not be back up bottles of anything. While I do love the extrait version of Gris Charnel, I don't think that I really want a full bottle of that this year. I know that the Eau de Hongrie is still in the cards but due to some more serious financial constraints that are popping up, I might not be able to get any perfume until maybe October of this year or maybe next year.. But that let's me work on seeing what I can do with finishing up some bottles of perfume and using up some decants. I do have quite a few that I haven't tried and really need to start wearing those and get on a regular schedule when it comes to writing reviews. But frivolous purchases are on the back burner for a long time right now. And that means anything that sounds like it might be considered "fun" is going to have to wait if it costs more that $25. I honestly thought that things were turning around with the finances but I was wrong. Trips are out of the question and the ghost hunt that I was thinking about is pretty much postponed until a later date.

Today was pretty interesting. The decision was made to replace my old bed frame with a new one. This new bed frame is going to take a little getting used to. My old bed frame sat fairly low to the ground and this new one is pretty high up. While my dad and I were putting this thing together, I couldn't help but think is how much more vacuuming that wasn't getting done with the old bed frame. I was thinking of vacuuming after my new bed was set up but by then, I wasn't so willing to do it. Since I don't have to work tomorrow, I can get it done then. Today was the first Sunday that my mother didn't have any football (not soccer) to watch and she was a little depressed over that and tonight was the season 4 finale of All Creatures Great and Small. Now there isn't anything too interesting to watch on TV until Call the Midwife begins on St Patrick's Day.
 

Not Exactly Amused

I have blogged about having my Afterpay account frozen and wanting to pay it off before I thawed it out? I decided to pay the rest of the stupid thing off a week early and thawed it out. Because I was stupid and needed to make a payment arrangement to make sure it was paid off, Afterpay has reduced my limit to $100. I fully expected them to reduce that $1,400 limit to maybe $200 at worst and maybe $400 at most. Between those two numbers, it was a usable amount  and very workable amount. I just wasn't expecting something that severe. Afterpay's reasoning was to "encourage responsible spending" but after reading tons of posts on Reddit, Afterpay seems to be on everyone's shit list. People who have never paid late or made excessive purchases are getting denied for orders or their limits reduced. Some are only getting a limit of $50 and that isn't a usable limit at all. I am going to use the $100 that I have and maybe use that for gift cards and then get the things that I will need. Maybe by March or April, May at the very latest, I might have a $300 limit. So perfume purchases have been pushed back and probably way back. I am okay with that though. With having Afterpay paid off and the rest of my cellphone bill will be paid next week, I can rework my budget and I am a little more relaxed at this point. Paying $75 every two weeks was starting to kill my bank account. But it looks like Afterpay might not be doing all that great if orders are being denied or limits being slashed to something unusable along with taking away the no upfront payment feature.

Tax season has started in the US and I got my W-2 in the mail a few days ago. I could have filed it yesterday or today but I am being a little lazy about it right now. I don't want to file it right now, even though I am going to receive a small refund. The extra funds would be beneficial to me but I have to wait until what others decide what is about to happen with the cellphone business that we have going on. Are they getting their own plan or wanting to stay on my plan and just upgrade their phones? And this is another first world problem. I had let someone know that if she wants an iPhone, she either pays for the entire thing upfront or she goes and gets her own plan, my budget doesn't support an iPhone. What I would really love to do is upgrade my phone, pay the activation fee and just bank the rest of the money.

I am trying not to go out and get back ups of anything this year and mostly succeeding at this point. I would love to get a backup bottle of Chanel no 5 in extrait form. Even though Sephora has it and will have a spring sale around April, I must remind myself that I have tons of no 5 already and I don't need more of it. I want to finish up another bottle or two of no 5 and must finish the extrait bottle that I already have before I can consider getting another extrait bottle. This is a year were I am more motivated to make some changes to my life. To have a better relationship with money, to use up more things (like candles and perfume) and actually go out and do more. By trying not to buy stuff, means that I can save some money to actually go out and do things. At the end of the day, I just want to enjoy life a little more. I am tired of being invited to go out and do something but have to turn down the invitation due to money. I would like to live a little bit more and live a little better.
 

It's the New Year and I've Already Failed

 We are not even a week in to the new year and I've pretty much blown one of my resolutions. I hopped on the Bath and Body Works website and spent that $50 gift card and a little bit more. I promised myself that I would wait a little while before I spent that. I over by $10. But the fact remains that I still failed at it. I guess I have to get back on the bandwagon and seriously get moving on trying to keep my resolutions. I haven't broken my perfume resolution yet but I want to work on saving money.

I am working on cutting more subscriptions in an effort to do that. I don't watch Hulu that much and that went and my PBS subscription that I had tied to my Amazon account went as well. Amazon Music had to go as well since I wasn't really listening to it. I downgraded my Barkbox subscription. I used to have all of these add-ons with my Barkbox along with a double Barkbox but my dogs are going to have to content themselves with 2 toys and 2 treats every month. Yes, I am too much of a wimp when it comes to the dogs. Between my dad and I, Amazon Prime pretty much pays for itself so Amazon Prime stays. That let to a $45 a month savings and that will lead to over $500 per year.

I had to strip down my cellphone plan as well. Take my word for it, those plans can get expensive and expensive quick. I might have only been able to shave about $15 per month but with small changes, I have to start somewhere. And those subscriptions and the cellphone stuff were the first things that I had to start somewhere. What is working in my favor at this point is that I am 3 more payments away from having my Afterpay balance paid off. Having to pay $75 every 2 weeks eats in to a budget. I might wait a week or two before having that account unfrozen before I will use it again.

I am starting to rethink my grocery shopping. I'm trying to buy less soda, frozen meals and junk food along with shopping that sale fliers. I'm not exactly trying to eat healthier but want to see if I can stretch my groceries a little farther. Cutting back on the soda, junk food and frozen meals might be convenient but it gets to be expensive you get in the habit of buying those things. So I am trying to plan meals around sale ads. What is working in my favor is that with Costco runs, my freezer is to the point of over full with frozen meats. All of the meat has been all separated into manageable portions. That way, I am not throwing out a whole lot of food.

What I am planning to do in the next 2 or 3 months is go with a friend to the Mansfield Reformatory for a ghost hunt. For a shade over $100 per person, from 7pm to 3am, you will be locked in the Reformatory to ghost hunt to your hearts content. If we go, we will probably get together at about 3 or 4, grab something to eat and start to head down. It will take about an hour and a half to get down there and eating takes some time. I think that I will pick up either a Panera of McDonald's gift card well before then. Nothing is finalized yet but we are planning to go when we get some kind of tax refunds.

End of Vacation

Today is my last day of my vacation and it will be back to reality. I am not looking forward to going back to work tomorrow. Monday is a day I normally have off but it's a holiday and I need to go in. It was a week that I didn't do a whole lot.

On Monday, my parents and I went to a winery for my mom's birthday and it was nice. I have noticed in Northeast Ohio that wineries and breweries have become a big thing. So I think that my parents have been thinking about hitting those a little more since they are both retired and quite a bit of the COVID restrictions have lifted.

Thursday was the day that we went to the natural history in Cleveland not realizing that it was undergoing renovations. All they had going on was the outdoor wildlife exhibit and a small 3D movie thing. We saw the Lucy reconstruction and a full triceratops skeleton. Yes, we did see the movie and went outside to see the animals but all in all, that trip was a bust. I have been trying to find free or low cost things to do since I was low on funds. Yesterday, my dad and I went to see a Civil War reenactment and it was alright but there are probably better ones that are coming up this summer.

I am finishing up two candles and will be starting 2 more on Tuesday. So this week I was only able to get through 4 candles. Weather wise we had sunshine but a couple of those days were pretty chilly and I was a little paranoid about having candles burning with how my mother is always complaining about it. I am trying to whittle down my collection a little bit more before I start adding to it again.

There is some good news on the financial front. That Afterpay balance was paid off and the account had the freeze removed. But what do I do? I made the plunge and bought that bottle of Gris Charnel. Sure there are things that I want but I don't want to find myself in the same situation that I just got out of. At this point, I am sitting on my hands and not going over to Luckysent or Bath and Body Works to load up on things that I don't need. I probably shouldn't have gotten that bottle of Gris Charnel but it's something that I have been wanting for a while and the extrait was a little to rich for my blood even though it is a 100ml bottle. Now if I could get a show on the road to finishing up decants a bottles of perfume.
 

Perfume Going Back in Time

Sometimes I get those thoughts of what would I do differently if I went back in time. This is one of those times, especially with money and perfume.

If I could go back in time, about 13 years, there are things that I would do differently. The first thing that I would do is not go applying and getting approved for a million credit cards. That led me to getting quite a few bottles that I didn't like or outright hate. Hey, you have $300 on a credit card to use, let's buy a perfume! was kind of the rationale for me. But that hasn't worked well. If I could go back in time, I would have limited myself to 2 credit cards.

By only having 2 credit cards, I would have been forced into being more sniper like with the perfume buying and not wasting so much on things that I hated. There still would have been perfumes that I loved. The ones that I would have bought sooner or later would have been Lyric, Epic, Chanel no 5 in various forms and boatloads of vintage Bal a Versailles. Maybe a smidgen of Deneuve, Pleasures and Mitsouko thrown in. I think that my perfume collection would be much smaller than it is today. 

I do think with less temptation, my candle collection would be much smaller than it is today. I have over 40 candles and people in my household that think my perfume collection is bad enough and really hate the candles. The people in my household think that the candles are either too strong or just don't smell good. Maybe when the weather warms up as stays warm, I can have the windows open and burn my candles. Since it is cold and the windows are closed, I have a hard time with being able to get away with having a lit candle. When I do get to have a candle lit, everyone has to be out of the house and be out of the house for a few hours. Since most family members are out of the house, I have a candle going. Let's hope that I can continue to have this candle going for a while.
 

Being an Adult Sucks

I have spent most of my adult life as an irresponsible adult. Spending cash that I didn't have and have tried over the past couple years to become more responsible but time and time again, I failed. But it seems to be the year that I am cracking down on some things.

This is the year when I get serious about getting rid (paying off) these credit cards and buying a whole lot less shit. With that tax refund, I've taken care of 3 credit cards with small balances and half of another. This is the year when my Sephora credit card is going to stay at zero, along with Old Navy, Ulta and Victoria's Secret. I am not so interested in keeping the tiers that I have with those companies and I'm not so interested in points/cashback any more. I just want things paid off.

This is the year that I want to get going on getting a savings account and start saving some money. Cutting back on gifts will help with that along with cutting back on makeup, perfume and candles. I say that when I am going to be dropping some cash at Sephora when the spring sale hits. I've already budgeted the money in December so I think that I am okay right now. But I do worry about going over my budget and I seriously don't want to do that.

Later on in the year, I will be turning 40 and it's an over due thing to get my shit together. Get it together for a better credit score, less driving myself crazy trying to put out small fires month to month and just to have a better budget. Maybe next year, I can actually take a vacation and actually go somewhere instead  of sitting at home wondering on what I can do that it cheap or free.
 

Time to Get Serious

 

This is the year where I have started to get serious about things and the past month, very serious about some things. A few years ago, I got stupid with some credit cards and just got stupid with money in general. Everything financially got out of control and I never really got back in control.

My resolution this year is to really get back in control in the financial area of my life and now, it's really starting to take shape. I have made progress and things have gotten a fair bit more manageable but I am still working on some kinks but I am getting through. It's a little hard to be taken seriously when on buys three perfumes this month and have bought tons of candles since January. Since there is nothing I really want right now, I think that since I have one thing payed off and two others just about payed off, I can get moving on on getting more ducks in a row.

I have a vacation coming up the first full week of May and I am making some plans for it. They might be small things but I want to get them accomplished. I seriously want to wear and review a couple perfumes and really get going on finishing a couple bottles of perfume. Two bottles might be a month long project and not a week long project. I also want to use up 5 or 6 candles between now and May 9th and it's doable. I have noticed that the single wick candles from Bath and Body Works don't last as long as their three wick candles. I can get 7 days out of the 3 wick but only 3 or 4 out of the single wicks. If I can use up more candles, then it will be a lot much better because then I will have some space.

Here's to some new beginnings!