100 Day Spending Ban... and beyond?

Good morning, and as I write this, it is now the first (sunny) morning of 2013, so Happy New Year! In my next post, I'm going to discuss my general resolutions/goals for the year, but I wanted to go into more detail on this one: I'm going on a 100 day spending ban. I'm not the only beauty blogger who's going for it, here are some other lovely ladies who are giving this a try too:

Sandra from the Black Pearl Blog.
Georgina from Make-up Pixi3
Grace from All That Slap
Linsay from Pandora's Beauty Basket
Kelly from Kel Loves
Melissa from Son and Star

I've known for a while that I spend too much of my hard-earned cash on buying inordinate amounts of lipsticks, eyeshadows, foundations and so on. But I tried other ways of saving money and stopping myself first and they haven't worked, so it's cold turkey time (ooh some cold turkey wouldn't be so bad right now, got killer hangover munchies...)

(These are my piggie banks for saving up spare change , aren't they cute!)

My rules/guidelines are:

1. I can't buy any new make-up, skincare, body or haircare unless I run out of something I need and have no alternatives. For example, I only use one primer so if I run out I will rebuy it only if I've used it all and have no samples of primer lying around.
2. If I get the urge to buy anything, I have to talk to Kris (he's good at talking me out of it). And Kris can't buy me anything either.
3. I can't buy any new clothes, shoes, bags etc. unless it's really essential, such as new underwear, or new jeans for when I inevitably ruin my next pair (I'm not good with jeans for some reason...)
4. In general, I must stop and ask myself: "Do I need this?" before buying anything.
5. I can spend vouchers that are gifted to me.
6. All money saved will be going towards the moving fund (more on that in my resolutions/goals post.)

20th February should be about 50 days, and if I've counted properly, 11th April is 100 days? Correct me if I'm wrong on that one, I'm crap at counting. I will keep you updated on my progress throughout! As I said in the title, I intend to do this for at least 100 days, but if I do well, I will probably keep going. I need to save a lot of money this year so if this helps I'll keep trying it! Am I mad? Probably.

Let me know if you're also doing a spending ban, I'll link to any posts sent to me and we can all help cheer each other on. Best of luck for 2013 ladies!

Christina xo