December Low-Buy and Final 2016 Results

First of all, I apologize for my disappearance! I have no excuse this time, as I have a consecutive 10 days off work before the new year. I have had plenty of time to write blog posts; however, we’ve been doing renos at home, so our house has been too messy/hectic to able to take blog photos. Anyways, I hope everyone had a very wonderful and relaxing Christmas!

The last post of the year is on the items I purchased in December, as well as how I did overall in my 2016 low-buy. I thought about not buying anything in December since I was already in the red going into December, but who am I kidding! There was no way that I could’ve redeemed myself during the month, so I resigned to the fact that I was digging myself into a deeper hole. However, I’m happy to say I didn’t go too crazy this month. My December purchases largely revolved around face products, most of which I’ve been wanting for a while now.

I was originally going to forego using my $20 off $50 Sephora coupon, but I actually had stuff I wanted to buy, so I ended up ordering two brushes which I’ve been meaning to purchase.

Laura Mercier Fan Powder Brush ($35)

I’ve been looking for a good fan brush FOREVER, and a lot of the ones I’ve seen are either too sparse or not very soft. I’ve been big into highlighting in the last few months, even on an every day basis to work, so I’ve been getting a ton of us out of this since it arrived.

Sephora Classic Multitasker Contour Brush #55 ($15)

I finally own a decent contour brush, yay! I hadn’t quite reached a verdict on which contour brush to purchase at the beginning of the month, but while browsing the Sephora website, I saw that this was on sale for $15 (originally $30). The reviews looked pretty good, and at that price, I thought that I might as well give it a try. So far, I’ve really been loving it. The bristles are so soft!

With the $20 coupon applied to my order, my Sephora purchases ended up costing $30.

NYX HD Blush in Taupe ($8.54)

Again, a good contour powder is something I’ve been meaning to buy for a while, since a lot of the ones I own are a bit too warm to be used as contour shades. I have been doing a lot of debating over which contour powder to get. At the top of my list was the Anastasia contour shades, but I figured I might as well start with something less expensive from the drugstore instead. Shoppers Drug Mart was having a sale on NYX products, so I decided to give this one a try.

Essence Pure Nude Highlighter ($5.49)

This Essence highlighter has received so much hype in the last few months because it’s only $5, but is said to be a dupe for high end highlighters. It had been sold out for quite a while every time I visit a Shoppers, and I’ve been waiting for this to go back in stock. Finally, just before Christmas, I saw that they started carrying this again, so I snagged one up before they all flew off the shelves again.

So, this final purchase of the year wraps my my low-buy for 2016. How did I do?

It looks like I finished my low-buy $58 in the red. To be honest, I don’t think I did too shabby, but at the end of the day, a fail is still a fail! I tried to show as much restraint as I could throughout the year, and some months were harder than others. It was certainly an interesting challenge, though! For more than half the year, I gave myself a $10 budget a month, which is quite low – sometimes I found really easy to stick to this budget, and other months were a major struggle. Since I did not complete my 2016 low-buy without overspending, I am definitely giving myself a no-buy challenge in 2017, but only for parts of the year. A 2017 beauty resolutions post is coming up on Monday!

Did you do a low-buy or no-buy in 2016? If you did, how did you do, and if you didn’t, do you think you’d do one in 2017?