Spend free Shopping

Every now and again I do some spend-free shopping. Mostly this focuses on clothes and beauty products but I have lately also incorporated books, magazines, flowerpots …. Anything that would be useful to me at this time.

Clothes swap

First of all clothes….. Now every woman has too many clothes as it is so you can go shopping in your own wardrobe or get together with friends, relatives etc …as long as they are your size or were your size at some stage.

The idea is obviously to swap clothes. I think some people might find it weird or even gross but I’m not talking about swapping knickers…. We all wash our clothes and generally take good care of them so if I have items lying around which were impulse buys or just not matching my current style anymore I find it a good money saving idea to pass them on to my friends (or sister in my case).

Great tip here…start with your pregnant friends or recently pregnant. They, without them knowing or choosing, basically live in their jogging tracks and bulky shirts and before they know it their style will have evolved. At least this is what pregnancy did to me. After regaining my pre-pregnancy weight I didn’t quite get into my old style. It changed somehow and I have to say it was actually fun to change the way I dress. I guess it’s because my whole life kind of changed, so it’s obvious that your wardrobe will too.

Visit your wardrobe

If the clothes swap with friends is not working for you then I strongly recommend you go shopping in your own wardrobe. Unless you are a total neat freak and super organised you, as all others of us out there, will choose your clothes by the 80/20 rule. You were 20% of your clothes for 80% all the time. Don’t say it isn’t so.…. It really is. For most of us if not all of us.

So what I love to do every now and again is to turn my wardrobe upside down. I take everything out….and then look at every piece and ask myself how I can wear this. It’s really fun. Especially with those items that you hardly ever wear. Just get creative. Pieces which are hardly worn just need a bit of spicing up.

I generally find it easiest to put a whole outfit together with those items I don’t wear a lot. You will be surprised how easy it is to combine it in a different way to make it work for you. It’s definitely worth a try and I guarantee you that you will be excited to wear your “newly” put together outfit. And of course, best of all, it didn’t cost a thing.

If you need some outfit creation inspiration, then head over to pinterest, Instagram or do a general google search on the type of outfit you are looking for. You will be inspired to say the least.

I love checking out hello gorgeous for styles:

https://www.instagram.com/hellogorgblog/

Beauty products

If I am honest I could almost open up my own little drugstore. No, not really but there are lots of items I have accumulated over some time which were then quickly replaced with something else and I end up with lots of barely used products.

Before we delve into this further…..beauty products, especially make-up doesn’t last for decades, even though we might think it does. Products generally have their lifetime information on the box. So if you come across some foundation which you haven’t worn in years and the lifetime is 1 year after opening it, then please throw it out. I would throw out any mascara that was opened but not used in a while, chances are it’s clogged up and not good for your eyes anymore. I did however come across eye shadow palettes, primers, blush, bronzers, perfume, hand crèmes (so many kinds and flavours), pocket mirrors and even nail polish which were just sitting in the bottom of my bathroom cabinet.

So even if you end up throwing out a lot at first during this exercise, I am sure you will come across some old treasures which are just waiting to be back in your life.

I also take perfume swapping on the next level. I’m kind of the type to get bored easily, especially with perfume that I have chosen for myself. I treasure those that are gifts but anything else, just as with make-up or clothes, could do with a change now and then. I have recently suggested a perfume swap with my mom. She has soo many lovely perfumes, all gifts, in fact I can’t ever remember a time when this woman bought a bottle of perfume for herself. She does have favourites which we are aware of, so she won’t get stuck with lots of perfume she dislikes. But mostly she wears the same one over and over. So I brought all my perfume bottles over to her house (except my gift ones) and she chose what smells she liked and I did the same with hers. We are now having lovely perfumes which actually match our current fancy….for now.

 

Hopefully this gives you some ideas for a spend free shopping trip. Let me know how you get on and have fun re-discovering some hidden treasures.