Three months is a long time

I mentioned a shopping ban recently. Oh yes.



Well I do want, really. But my shopping-loving self is screaming inside.

I was inspired by the lovely Cclarebear, who fairly recently went through her own shopping ban. In her case, her lovely other half had promised her a high-stakes prize.

I, foolishly, organised no such thing.

On the first day of health kick (which I am still doing, thank you very much... except for the exercise as I currently have a sinus infection AND tonsillitis), I decided on a whim that I should immediately address the shopping habit I'd developed while I was forbidden from maintaining my usual routine. I can be so spontaneous sometimes.

Being on myriad antibiotics on and off for several months, no exercise, feeling sick and unable to cope left me eating a lot of junk food and resulted in me feeling (and looking) a bit of a mess. As a defence mechanism, I started going to the shops and buying little things. Lip glosses here. Eye shadow there. Nail polish too. I was amassing more makeup and skincare products in an attempt to perk myself up and feel better about the fact that my skin and body were protesting to this cruel and unusual punishment. It was starting to add up and it was stressing me out.

After being given the all clear and giving myself another month to recuperate, I decided enough was enough and started the initial health kick to rebalance things. And to make it twice as hard, I also imposed the following shopping rules on myself to try and break the old habit:

1. 120 days. 30/04/2012 - 28/08/2012

2. No new beauty, hair, nail products or homewares.

3. Two exceptions: If the MAC palettes I have on order at the Chatswood store come into stock, I am allowed to go pick them up. I am also allowed one nail polish order in May after the Spiderman OPI collection comes out - that's something I've been planning for the past month!

*Note - this was written before I found out about MAC's changed animal testing policy. I'm currently deciding what to do about my backorder.

4. If I run out of something and need a replacement I am allowed to purchase it... only if there are no similar products that I already have that I can use instead.

5. If an appliance breaks I am allowed to replace it if it used regularly.

6. If I break the ban, I have to pay a $150 fine into my savings account immediately.

I hadn't thought about giving myself a prize if I make it through to the end of the ban unscathed. The question is... should I even do that, or does it defeat the point?

One awesome thing though - well before I started my shopping ban, I placed a pre-order at Darling for some of their AW2012 nail lacquers. They're due to ship sometime this week... so I'm going to get a nice little package of pretties while not breaking my ban! If that's not cause for a happy dance, I don't know what is...