Five items I deliberately splurge on while being on a budget
Being an old girl on her path to become a young woman, one of the things I need to master is money. So let’s talk about money, shall we? But before you stop reading and drop out of my blog: wait! This is not going to be a post about strict budgeting whatsoever. I don’t want to lean into a “scarcity mindset”, which causes stress. Which causes your body to release cortisol. Which makes you gain weight. Instead, I want to lose weight. I want to wear a swimsuit in seven months and need to stay fit and so do you. So let’s lean into an “abundant mindset” and talk about the five things I deliberately spend a lot of money on. Yes, I’m talking about splurging. And bear in mind: this isn’t only to enjoy life and the present moment like impulsive and underdeveloped epicureans do. This is also (mostly) because I’m an addicted-to-pain stoic with a clear long-term vision: I want to show off my shredded legs next summer at the pool!
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1) Gym membership. Last year I got tired of running and working out on my own. So I decided to go to the gym and join the fanciest one I could find. The subscription costs 80 Euro monthly, which is rather expensive for the small city I live in and considering that I could have joined the university gym for as little as 40 Euro a year. I believe people won’t be consistent and motivated enough when they don’t pay or pay too little. And if you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with, this is especially true when it comes to working out. You don’t want to be surrounded by students in their teens or early twenties who think they can skip classes whenever there’s an alcohol-based university event, which is at least twice a week. Instead, you want to be surrounded by warriors in their thirties or forties who fight against the scars of time, gravity, pregnancy, and a past couch-potato attitude. These people show up at the gym at least four times a week and execute their workout like pros. Plus the fancy gym subscription comes with free access to the spa area with three types of sauna, the steam and a huge relaxing area. So together with a fit body next summer I’ll also have a nice and smooth skin.
2) Shower gel. I shower only with my Weleda Lavender shower gel. That’s a 6.75 Euro bottle containing (only) 200 ml of pure pleasure. The perfume of the lavender encapsulated in this gel is so soothing that I don’t need any other reward after working out than the possibility to shower with it. No chocolate, no carbs, no chocolate inside carbs… Do you see what I mean? For those of you who don’t know it, Weleda is a brand that got approved by vegan and organic bloggers around the world for how much natural its natural products are. This is a big deal because it means that you won’t get cancer out of showering. And trust me, you can trust those bloggers. Their requirements for approving a natural product and declaring it really natural are more stringent than those of the EU for securing electronic health records in the Cloud. I tell you that for experience because securing electronic health records in the Cloud is what funds my showers with Weleda Lavender shower gel!
3) Nail polish. There’s nothing better than having a morning ritual that preps you to be the best version of yourself. Putting expensive makeup on my face is surely part of my ritual. By default I buy Dior makeup and settle down for Chanel whenever I can’t find what I want, like it happened last spring. (Can’t believe I just wrote “settle down for Chanel” by the way.) In particular, for each season I buy one nail polish from the new collection. I always pick the revamped version of a blueberry-violet color for the fall-winter season and of a peachy-pink color for the spring-summer season. The price for having fashionable nails while still remaining faithful to the same color palette as I had since high-school is only 22.50 Euro per season. I say “only” because I like the color of my nails so much and I receive so many compliments for it that I don’t need to buy more. Instead, those who buy the 4.70 Euro worth nail polishes won’t get the same joy out of those ordinary colours and will eventually buy six of them. Who is the one saying money now?
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4) Lipstick. The same thing holds for lipsticks, except that for the Fall-Winter season I don’t pick a violet lipstick but a light-pink nude effect one. Ok, ok, I know, I know I could have included this simple sentence in the paragraph above and named it “Makeup” rather than “Nail polish”. This would have made this already-very-long post a little shorter. But I plan to submit this article to another website in a few weeks. This means that the post published here at Breaking Thirty should be longer and have different headlines than the other one. Otherwise, Google SEO will perceive this content as redundant and I won’t bring any new traffic over here. Ok, cool. I guess this post is long and diversified enough now. Let’s move on!
Mmmh… wait, I had gym membership, gel shower, nail polishes, lipsticks… I don’t want to give you the impression that I’m a superficial gal who only cares about being fit, makeup and showering every day… No! I’m very profound… and spiritual! Indeed, do you know the other thing I splurge on? You won’t believe it… I’m so profound that I splurge on matcha tea! You might have seen it on the menu of hipster bars under the name of matcha tea latte, next to chai tea latte and pumpkin spice latte. Of course, I drink it pure without all the “latte” crap… Maybe I shall do a bullet point for it as well.
Photo by Carolyn V
5) Tea. Oh yeah, I’m a very profound and spiritual girl too. I’m so spiritual that I need a 1.50 Euro worth daily shot of matcha tea to feel grounded and at peace and be able to sit down and meditate for 10-15 minutes. I prepare my matcha tea by using a rigorously handmade bamboo whisk to remove the big bubbles and create the desired foam. I drink it from an insanely expensive handmade matcha cup that my ex-boyfriend left me when we broke up more than two years ago. Even though it reminds me of my ex and some days this might negatively affect my meditation session, I didn’t get rid of that cup. Not because of spiritual reasons or for learning-how-to-forgive sort of crap this time. But because it’s the most beautiful cup I’ve ever seen and there’s no way I’ll find myself again in the fanciest tea shop of Montreal spending 90 Euro to buy another one!
Now I’d love to hear from you: what are the items you treat yourself with by spending (or investing!) a lot of money on? Are you a compulsive spender on these items or is it something you consciously plan to do? What are the side effects (both positive and negative) of you splurging on these items? Let me know in the comments below! Also, if you liked this blog post and would like more unusual content on budgeting, then you should definitely subscribe to the Breaking Thirty Newsletter using the form below. You won’t regret it! ;)