My husband is very easy going too. He's also a good gauge, because he wouldn't say a word about what I spend (we each have our own discretionary money) unless it really seemed odd to him. I think it's important to respect joint financial goals; I've seen lots of couples go the mat over money. One is a saver and sticks to the budget and the other doesn't, and it causes serious problems. I've coached my own kids to be very careful about the financial habits of potential partners, because one partner can and often does take both into a sea of debt. I'm not at all suggesting you've done this, but it's important that we factor agreements with our partners into our buying. As much as we love it, this is just makeup.
I think you're right about the consumer spending. I don't comment when I see it, but there are lots of references on the site about 'money saved' when an item is skipped. Well, it's only saved if it's actually put away into an account and left alone. Spending it on something else doesn't count as saving. I do think that lots of us enjoy shopping/collecting and that makeup is just a symptom of that. It's easy to shift from makeup to nail polish to purses to something else and not really address what the root cause of the behaviour is.
I understand this too well. It took me a long time to retrain myself and I feel like I've slipped back a bit recently. I'm fortunate to be in a place where I can afford it, but that doesn't make it better. I'm still wasting money that I work very hard to earn.
I think the thing is that I'm a spender and he is too. We just buy and value different things. I think 2014 will be a great opportunity to cinch both of our belts, take a step back and re-evaluate our priorities. I started reading this book called "You can Buy Happiness (And It's Cheap)" By Tammy Strobel - it's pretty good. I actually read a lot of financial books, but have to put what I read into practice. I've worked in the debt industry and have seen my fair share of couples who hide debt from each other. I've seen some crazy, crazy things and I can see what will usually happen (resentment, divorce, etc). It's a slippery slope & it's easy to get used to spending certain amounts of money on things - we get accustomed to a certain lifestyle without really questioning what we are doing.
In my early 20s I could months and months without purchasing makeup. Now I have more cash and have become accustomed to a certain level of purchasing. It's an easy error in thinking but can be corrected with some proper attention.
I think for 2014 I will limit myself to 30 items or less, including 'essentials ' (Mascara, primer). This will include B2M and gift card purchases. I'm not going to create a specific item list, because I usually look at a collection and get drawn to certain items and not necessarily the same types of items. I am getting a lot of items for Christmas (Naked 3 YEEEEAHHH BUDDY) so I should be able to do less than 30 items.
Because of this thread, I returned a MAC mascara the other day that I purchased and hated (Plum Reserve False Lash Mascara). I've never returned a product to MAC. EVER.
On the flip side, I went to Sephora for their $20 coupon thing. I got to the register with my items, and they told me I'd already used my coupon (Husband did). I was kind of embarrassed actually. And kind of pissed off that Sephora kept telling me via email to use my coupon. I bought one item for $30 with tax, left, and then wondered if Sephora had done that on purpose (kept sending me the email to make me think I still hadn't used the coupon - knowing that many customers would be too embarassed, etc to walk away withouth their products?). HMMMMM.
