I Tried and Failed

You know how I said that I wouldn't imbibe in getting anything new in terms of perfume? Yeah, four days in, I caved and ordered a Rose Jam shower and body kit. It was the debate of a one ounce bottle of Narciso Rodriguez for her bottle or the That's My Jam kit. I could have used my $25 credit on Fragrance net and gotten the Narciso Rodriguez for just about free. I also was starting to use the justification of if I want to start reclaiming my diamond status at Ulta, I needed to get a move on. After I made the purchase, I called myself a dumbass and said I have all damn year to level up with Ulta rewards. So now it's back to square one. Now I have to make a bigger and better effort into achieving the no new perfume for at least 6 months. It is going to be tough to do. The only thing that I am holding firm on is my breakup with Bath and Body Works. I guess I have to take my wins where I can since it's been a month or a little over since I made a Bath and Body Works purchase.

I already have some Rose Jam body wash and some of that "conditioner" but haven't given it a try yet. But when I smell the conditioner, I am reminded of Andy Tauer's  Rose de Kandahar perfume. So I am thinking that I am going to see if I can layer the Rose Jam body stuff and Rose de Kandahar. But I want to give the Rose Jam stuff a go before I go layering stuff. But let's hope that I can keep my resolutions for right now.
 

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.
 

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.

Post New Year

We are three weeks into the new year and many have made New Year's resolutions. Every year, I make perfume resolutions with varying degrees of success. Even though I fail with them, I do have some successes. Let's face it, it's tough going. But I am happy that I have stuck to my resolution of not buying anything perfume wise yet because I am broke. Broke as in the fact that I did overspend with Christmas and the bills have come in. The bills have to be paid first before I can go and get or do anything fun. It may be months before I can add anything new to my collection. I'm looking at is as a good thing right now.

You know that perfume to buy list? I'm taking another look at it. There are some that I took another look at and went right into the maybe list and some others that are going into the I will get them eventually type of deal. It's made the list a whole lot shorter.

After looking at my massive, massive to me at least, I really realized that I really need to use up some of my full bottles. I have boatloads of backups and a few that are almost finished. I'm at the point of where I am determined to finish some of those perfumes. I have a vintage bottle of Shalimar that is a third full and just begging to be finished off. That bottle of Shalimar isn't all that vintage (probably a '90's version at best) and I can more than afford to finish that one off. That bottle of Cuir de Russie that I spilled? I can finish that off too in no time along with a small bottle of no 19 extrait. Then I think that I will finish off two bottles of vintage Bal that are half full. See? Not so hard when you figure out some of this. It can be the execution of the plan when it boils down to it.

I've also made some commitments to finish off some of the decants that are floating around my house. Take my word for it, I have tons of those and I do need to take a look to see how many have evaporated, how many have a wearing or two left and I must start wearing and reviewing more. Hopefully I will have some space on my dresser to add one or two new bottles of perfume. But I must finish at least 4 bottles this year before I can consider doing that.

Miserable Failure

Well, my New Year's resolutions ended in a miserable failure. My resolution was kind of large. I made a vow not to buy anymore full bottles of anything (even vintage partials) until I finished a full bottle or two of what I have. And what did I do? Make the mistake of going on to E-bay and finding a sealed full bottle of vintage Bal and some vintage Miss Dior. So I made it about mid month to really blow my resolution of no buy. But in a way, I didn't fully blow my resolution. I have been wearing more of Chanel no 5 either in EDP or EDT.

Since my skin is so dry and winter makes it especially dry, I can get away with wearing 3 perfumes over the coarse of a single day. I can wear Shalimar in the morning, Jicky in the afternoon and Chanel no 5 for a bed time scent. But slowly, I am making a little progress and somewhat sticking to my commitment to finish a couple bottles. But in a way, it can be tough going. I'm pretty fickle when it comes to picking out a perfume to wear. It seems like I want to wear just about everything but not enough skin and if I wore everything in my collection I would probably smell horrible. But I'm not really wearing a lot of Amouage. I'm not wearing Amouage for a couple reasons, besides that they are pretty expensive. I view it as that to drain some of my bottles, being able to wear 3 perfumes a day right now, helps me out. And Amouage lasts all day and night and that doesn't really help with my goal of finishing off some of my collection. I still love my Amouge perfumes that I own but they kind of do hinder my collection. I think that once a week, I will wear my Amouage perfumes.

I've already blown one of my New Year's resolution

I have already blown my New Year's resolution about perfume. I made the resolution to not buy anymore perfume until I use up at least 4 of my many 1.7 ounce perfumes. But this past year I've added 8 new perfumes to the mix. I am thinking of giving a few of them away. My sister is coming into town at the end of march and I am going to see if there is something that she likes enough to take with her. Right now, it's probably a good thing that my bank account is hating me at the moment because it will be a while before I will be able buy some samples from luckyscent.com let alone a full bottle of anything. I think that my dresser top will be thankful and there will be more room but quickly filled.