What I Bought This Week #15

CHEESE was the name of the game this week! Hubby and I have been mad about cheese lately. I've also been trying to cook more plant-based meals, so I placed a big Walmart order and stocked up on a variety of beans and grains. Hubby still eats meat almost every day, but I've been gravitating towards going meat-free a few days a week. I don't intentionally try to exclude meat most days, but I have been trying to increase my intake of fruit and veggies so the amount of meat (and grains) I consume has experienced a corresponding decrease as a result. It feels good to be eating so much more fruit and vegetables -- this has been a background goal of mine for ages and I finally feel like I'm making some headway. I'm always hungry though so I've had to up my cooking quite a bit. Since I wake up early now, I've shifted a bunch of my cooking to the morning before hubby gets up. It's a great time to get things done, and it feels like moving meditation, so it's kind of the perfect combination of relaxing while also being productive.

Empties • Jan to Mar 2019

It's time for another round of empties -- in the past 2.5 months, I finished a pretty decent number of both full-size products and minis. My bathroom cabinet is finally starting to clear out! In this video, I also chat a bit about my new philosophy for holy grail products. I no longer spend a lot of time or money searching for "the best" product. There are way too many products -- both existing and newly released -- to try them all. Instead, I stop my search when I find a product that I feel delivers value and is good enough. This has been a really refreshing and liberating approach that is based in JOMO.

What I Bought This Week #14

We're in April already, and I've been chugging along with my no-buy. Once again this week, we've only purchased groceries, supplies for the home (e.g., cleaning products), pet necessities, and a few bottles of wine. The only item that was an impulse purchase was the Wild Rose 5 Mushroom Blend. I've been meaning to try a medicinal mushroom health supplement, but I hadn't done any research when I decided to buy this product. Instead, I wanted to meet a minimum shopping threshold for free delivery; however, this desire usually results in me spending way too much time shopping online, even when it's just for groceries! In the end, I'm happy I decided to pick up this product--it seems to help with my energy levels, and it doesn't taste as bad as some of the reviews suggest. :) Note: I forgot to take photos a couple of times, so there are two days showing empty bags and empty Boursin cheese boxes. These contained cheese buns, which have gone happily into our bellies. And yes, I dug through my garbage and recycling so I could take these two photos.

Keep or Donate #30 & #31

It's time for a two-episode revival my keep or donate series! When doing my 30 day tidying challenge, I held onto a few items in order to film these videos. I was inspired by Alexa Likes and her try-on declutter video. I thought it was a fantastic idea to talk through the items I'll be letting go of, but there was an unintended effect as I ended up saving a few things. Similar to my current accessories challenge that I'm documenting on Instagram, I'll be wearing these clothing pieces for a day to determine whether I'll be keeping them in my collection.





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Makeup and Skincare Inventories

Now that I'm done with tidying and waking up at 5am every day, I'm finding myself with much more mental clarity and motivation. I'm going to try to catch up with posts this week, as this blog has not been keeping up with my YouTube channel. I recently posted a skincare inventory video (a requested video), and I thought I would include in this blog post my latest makeup inventory as well. I've made a lot of progress in my stash, and I plan to continue on this downward trend!

What I Bought This Week #13

It's the last day of March, and my 2019 no-buy has been rather uneventful. I haven't had the urge to shop, but I still have a few things I'm trying to work on. For the past 3 months, I've pretty much only purchased groceries, and I've noticed a few things about myself that I'd like to change. Going forward, I'd like to work on the following:

1) Become more aware of the "regular" prices of products and the least expensive place to buy these items. I've noticed that I have gotten really out of touch with the "regular" prices of products. After many years of working full-time, having no debt, and having access to a lot of disposable income, I lost my price sensitivity to day-to-day necessities like groceries. For example, I had no idea that the "regular" price of 750g of only peanuts peanut butter in downtown Toronto is upwards of $7.99 now (I bought one recently for $2.99 on sale, but I hope I hadn't paid full price in the past). I've somehow become completely unaware of reasonable prices for products, which is extremely uncharacteristic for me as I was always very budget conscious growing up. Fortunately, now that I'm aware of this issue, I'm sure it will be very easy to change.

2) Buy only what I truly need and refrain from repurchasing items as soon as they run out (unless they are absolute staples with no substitutes). This was one of my 2019 goals, but I needed a reminder. When groceries are on sale, I often buy multiples, so I still tend to stock up a bit too much. While this is not as detrimental to my stash--or budget--as stocking up on shoes, clothing, handbags, or makeup, I don't want to continue accumulating stores of products as I find jam-packed cupboards overwhelming. I recently found a few expired canned goods, and food waste has always made me feel horrible. I want to develop more of a just-in-time inventory system of groceries and home goods.

3) Spend less time online shopping for groceries and household products. I've been shopping for groceries online a lot--I don't always go through with the purchase, but I feel like I waste a lot of time looking for things to put in my virtual shopping cart. I'd like to nip this in the bud. The other thing I tend to do is try to meet the minimum threshold for free shipping, which causes me to buy things I don't need. I placed an order on Well.ca this week that is the perfect example of this; however, I haven't received the order yet, so I'll explain more in next week's post.

What I Bought This Week #12

This week has been interesting. I've still been sticking to my no-buy, but I've been forgetting to take photos of our groceries--in particular, when we buy demi-baguettes. The first time I forgot, I dug the empty bag out of the garbage, but the next time, we had already thrown our trash down the chute. I also made a boo-boo on Amazon and bought a tiny bag of hay for what we would normally pay for a bag more than twice the size. We couldn't return it, so that was an oops on my part. Lastly, I was in need of some more vitamin B12 so I ordered online from Costco and stocking up on a few things we didn't need at this time. I'll do better this week. On a more positive note, we're pretty much done all our sweet treats, so we've been eating a bit more healthy lately! Lots of fruits and veggies, and I finally baked again today--I've been craving these coconut flour chocolate chunk bars that are oh-so-delicious.