One more goal - Use more, Buy less

When it comes to spending money I have two extremes.

I am either incredibly, unnecessarily tight.

Or I just-have-to-have-it-I've-battled-myself-for-days-over-it-maybe-I-should-treat-myself-but-I'll-feel-guilty-as-hell-later.

But for me, the worst part is I love the anticipation of buying something. Sometimes more than the actual item.

I'm all giddy, I make the payment, I wait days for it to arrive.

Then it comes and I'm kind of over it.

Til the next thing.

And this is really, really bad.

Take for example my obsession with recipe books. On last count I had 41 in the flat alone.

I got 6 for Christmas, and I've only used one so far, but I've already got my eye on a new one.

Of my collection, I reckon at least a quarter are unused. Sure, I've probably read all of them cover to cover, but when it comes to actually using them, I know of at least five off the top of my head which are unused, despite being covered in post-its.

And take Phil's obsession with buying DVDs. The other day I sat in front of our overflowing DVD shelf, and picked out every DVD we'd bought that hadn't been watched yet. There were 50. 

So in 2016, I want to use more and buy less.

I want to make the delicious recipes from my wonderful cookbooks, I want to use the gorgeous eyeshadows and lipsticks I have, I want to read all the books I was so excited to buy, and I want to watch all the DVDs we were giddy to find in CEX.

This is not a shopping ban, but it is a "stop buying stuff til you've used all the other stuff you have" deal.

So over the next few months, here's what I want to do:

• Cook at least 2 recipes a week from my recipe books, especially the most abandoned ones. I am not allowed to buy any new recipe books and any I want I can ask for for my birthday (which is at the end of March). I will probably blog about this.
• Read books that I already own either physically or on Kindle (I get most of my books from the library, so I don't spend a huge amount of money on books, but I do have a lot of unread books both on my shelf and my Kindle). I only tend to buy books when we go on holiday, so I'd like to try to stick to this for a good few months.
• No new nail polishes til I have used at least half of the ones I have
• No new makeup that resembles anything I already have, except replacements, until my Birthday
• No new DVDs til Phil has watched 10 of his unwatched DVDs (this is more for him than me, but it fits with the context)

I reckon I can handle the recipe books, the DVDs and books however might be a bit of a challenge. We'll see!

Are you going to use more and buy less in 2016?

Charlotte x