Decluttering My Things

One of my goals for 2018 was to declutter my stuff.  Now, I don't have as large amount of stuff by anyone's standards, but it is still much more than I need and way too much to be carrying around everywhere.  I'm not planning to go completely minimalist in the number of items I have and there are a few things I know I will use in the future.  But I also know there's a lot of things that I don't use and will probably never use, so it's time to get rid of them.

To give myself some structure and make sure I don't miss anything (my items are dotted around my parents home) I've decided to use Pick Up Limes list for 30 Days to Minimalism.  I'm not going to be taking 30 days to actually do the decluttering  (being out of work at the moment and not needing to fit it around that), but I will go through the categories provided and declutter at each section.  There will be some categories where I will have very little or no items at all, but still think this is a good route to take.

Unfortunately I do think that this would be a subject that was more interesting in video format rather than a blog. But seeing as I don't have any way of recording or editing the footage (yet) I'm going to keep the decluttering in blog form.  Apologies for that.

It's always interesting when you put all your stuff in boxes and pile them up into a pile, and see just how much stuff you've been hiding away in your home.  Let me know if you're decluttering this year, or have already been decluttering, and how you plan on doing it.

Living on a Budget

One of my goals this year is to finally sort out my finances, including the start of paying off my student loan and earnestly paying into a pension.  While I was deciding on this goal I did a lot of research, read a number of blogs, and, I have to admit, binged watched a lot of YouTube.  The one piece of advise they all had in common was that all paths to financial success started with a budget.

Whilst I have read a lot of (and watched a lot of) Dave Ramsey's advice on how to get out of debt, the main person I'll be following for advice is actually Alvin Hall, mainly because I have his book 'Your Money or Your Life' which I brought years ago but never actually used.  The whole point of a budget is to 'tell your money where to go' (I believe this is a Dave Ramsey quote), but, as pointed out by Alvin Hall, you first need to work out where it's taking itself and importantly why it's taking itself there.  Finding out why you're spending the money on what you're spending it on is hugely important as it not only lets you see where you might be emotionally spending (to make yourself feel better), but also where you might just be spending money because you're haven't made simple preparations in advance.

I've already been doing a spending diary for the last month and though it hasn't necessarily given a 100% accurate picture of my spending (as I've been homeless and living with my parents for about a month) it has still highlighted some crucial things.  Mainly, I do still comfort eat when I'm upset and I spend way more than I should on 'treats' whether food or jewellery.  I thought I had more of a handle on these than I actually do and this has been a very helpful eye opener to the fact that I don't.  Neither of these habits is particularly good for my health, my bank balance, or for the planet.  I will need to watch myself in the future and keeping an eye on my spending should mean that I am able to keep these two habits in check.

Though this hasn't been a very realistic month I can still use the information I've gained from this exercise and my knowledge of previous expenses to put together an initial budget, which I can tweak as necessary.  I am expecting this to change as, as yet, I'm not completely certain what all my compulsory expenses will be or even my exact income.  However, the plan this year is to have 15% of my wage go to a pension scheme and at least 10% go to paying off my debt.  Having a budget ready to fit all these numbers in will be extremely helpful.  

Moving forward I will be using my trusty (and now slightly battered) Your Money or Your Life book, as well as Your Dollars Count app (which can be converted into pounds) to help me put together a workable budget.  And I will be updating you on my progress in my goals update post in April.

Project Use Up 2018

I've decided this year to call this Project Use Up rather than Project Pan as there aren't many products which actually contain a pan.  There are 17 items in total and 7 of those are none makeup products, but all get me to my long term goal of having either 1 or none of them.

I'm not actually panning any eyeshadow this time, but I do want to actually get some use out of all my palettes this year (especially the Urban Decay X Gwen Stefani palette which I haven't touched yet despite having it for over a year now).  Whilst I'll be rotating my palettes on a weekly basis I still want to concentrate mostly on my Naked original palette, as this is my oldest, and will use Virgin or Naked as a base shadow, Buck as a transition, Toasted for my under-eye, and Creep as an eye liner every time I wear makeup.  I may need to throw it out by then end of the year.

Now for the products I'm actually planning on using up, starting with the eyes.  I'm rolling over the Barbara Day eye primer and Living Nature eye pencil in Midnight from last year and am hoping to get these finished this year, though not holding my breath.  The other two products are my Pacifica Transcendent Concentrated Concealer in Light and my NYX Dark Circle Under eye Concealer in Light / Pale.  I've been using both for a while and, despite the fact they do work, I no longer feel I want an under eye corrector or a liquid concealer.  They're also getting a bit old and I don't want to keep liquid products for too long.

I'm probably being a little bit optimistic on this front, but I'm going to try and use up four lipsticks.  The Neal's Yard lipstick in Persimmon is a roll over from last year, and with that I've added the Gosh Matte lipsticks in Rose and Plum, and the MUA lipstick in Raven.  I admit, the black lipstick might be a bit of a push but I'll see if I can incorporate it somehow.

The Jane Iredale blusher in Barely Rose is the last of my old blushes and is starting to turn a little bit with a hard layer forming on the top. I'm going to try and use it up by the end of this year as I might need to throw it away in 2019.  That being said it still goes on easily and is very pigmented so it shouldn't be too difficult to use.  The Zoya Pixie Dust nail varnish in Dahlia is also a roll over from last year and is the last of my nail varnishes.  It's quite pretty on the nails so wearing it won't be a problem.

For my non- makeup products I'm really needing to downsize my lip products.  Most are lip balms I can take to work with me, but I want to use up the products which I need to use my fingers to remove.  These are the Korres Lip Butter in Mango and the Lush Lip Scrub in Mint Juleps (which I don't think necessarily scrubs my lips particularly well).  These are already quite well used so I don't think they will take me too long.  They can be my morale buster.

Hand cream is another field where I have way more than I need.  I found a really nice hand cream when I was on Jura which I prefer using so I want to use up these other products, the Neal's Yard hand cream in Wild Rose, the Neutrogena anti aging hand cream, and the Burts Bees Hand Salve.

The last products are the Pacifica roll on perfume in Island Vanilla (this is my last perfume but I just find these perfumes don't last very long) and the Aragon Oil Hair Treatment.  This works well on my hair but I find the scent a bit too much.  I've added Jojoba oil to help reduce the scent, but as this is one of the products I now make myself I want to move this out.

I've taken another inventory and updated my 'Getting rid of stuff' page.  It's good to see the progress I've made in most areas.

Goals for 2018

At the beginning of 2017 I set myself some goals to help me move my life along the route I have long been wanting.  There were some that I was successful in (getting a job in the field I was interested in, getting my weight down to a healthy amount, and blogging on a weekly basis), but there were a few I failed on (getting off sugar and eating a healthier diet).

Looking back on the year and the goals that failed I know that I took on too many goals in one go and didn't really break them up into do-able smaller goals to help me move forward.  I also didn't let anyone know about my goals which took away the accountability side of things.  So this year I'm going to shake it up a little and set my goals on this blog (with a break down), with regular updates to keep me accountable.  I'm also going to reduce the number of goals I set to make them easier to achieve. So here we go:

Minimising.
I know minimalism is fashionable at the moment and I'm not wanting to jump on that bandwagon.  But changes in my life recently made me realise just how much stuff I have (and don't use) and how difficult is was having to move it all quickly.  All my furniture (except a kitchen table that has been in the family for generations) is already gone and I will be going through a number of the boxes and bags now at my parents.  I'm not intending on going to the extreme, but I do want to greatly reduce the amount I own, either using the products up through project pans or through decluttering, and stop buying more.  Products I do buy I will buy intentionally, only getting what I actually need.  That number isn't going to be particularly big.

Healthy Eating.
Every year I plan to eat healthier and get off sugar, and it's especially important as I have PCOS, but it always falls to one side.  I had been doing well getting off sugar, but the end of last year was stressful and my self control disappeared a little.  There was a lot of sugar consumption in the last few months.

So, the small goals are - the first three months will be spent getting off artificial sugars, including chocolate, fizzy juice, biscuits, etc.  April to June will be spent getting off processed food and getting back to making all my own meals again.  The rest of the year will be moving my diet towards a vegan diet, which should be easier once I've removed all the other problems.

Finances.
I've never been a big spender and, apart from my student loan, I have no real debt.  In fact my credit card is at zero and last year I managed to put aside some money for emergencies.  But I want to take this further and become a lot more financially stable.  I'm also 35 now and I really need to get my pension in order.  So the palm this year is to form a budget, keep to it, sort out my pension, and start paying off my student loan.

Like my healthy eating I'm going to break this down into quarterly blocks.  The first three months will be spent on budgeting, helping me to reduce my unnecessary spending and working out how much money I will have for my pension and paying off my student debt.  This should also show me where I can make changes to live more frugally and therefore have more to put towards debt reduction.  April to June will be spent researching what I need to do with my pension and who I should be trusting my pension money to.  And then giving them my pension money.  During the July to September period I'm going to be looking at any sidelines I can do along side my job (by then I should know how much spare time I will have) to help  move this goal along further.  The rest of the year will be spent telling my money where to go and working out where I could make more savings.

Basically I want to be at the point where living in the small home pictured at the beginning of this blog would be a real possibility and I will, of course, be keeping up with pushing my career into path construction and my continuing goal of blogging once a week and I will be doing quarterly updates here to keep myself on track.  I've decided to just have these three goals this year.  They are already pretty big goals and adding anymore will definitely reduce the chance of me even completing these.

So here's my first blog of 2018. 😁

Project Pan 17 Update #12

So this is my last post for 2017.  I had hoped that as my traineeship was over and I was waiting for a job in the field I would have a lot more opportunity to wear makeup regularly, using up much more product than before.   Unfortunately I got ill and was in now mood for putting time into applying the makeup or touching my already soar  and red nose.  I did make some progress, just not as much as I had  hoped.

Let's start with the Urban Decay original Naked palette.  I had hoped that there would be more obvious change in these shadows.  However, apart from more of a dip in a number of them there isn't any obvious changes here.  I'm doing something different with my palettes next year so this won't be part of my next project pan as such.

There's more of a dent in the Barbara Day eye primer but this is still not complete yet, so I'm rolling it into next year's project pan to use up.  It works pretty well, though not great, but as I can't find out if Barbara Day is cruelty free or not I want to use it up and I won't buy it again.

As the never ending story of this year the MUA powder foundation in Shade 4 and Bourjois blusher in Ceidre still look like they haven't been used, despite using them every time that I wear makeup.  These products are both quite old and I'll now be getting rid of them.  Both MUA and Bourjois are cruelty free (though I will be checking Bourjois' status again in 2018 as I've heard mixed things).

Now for the products I've added in for this last month.  The Pacifica perfume in Tuscan Blood is now finished.  I liked the smell a lot better than I thought I would, but it doesn't linger for very long and I prefer more simple scents.  Pacifica is cruelty free though.

I've managed to get through a lot more of the Zoya Pixie Dust nail varnish in Dahlia then I thought I would this month.  There's still a bit to go so I'll be rolling this into next year's project pan to finish off all my nail varnishes and then my nails can breathe.  Zoya is a cruelty free company.

I've managed to make some more progress in the Neal's Yard lipstick in Persimmon despite not wearing it regularly.  Lipstick is the one bit of makeup I definitely don't wear when I have a cold.  This product is also being rolled over into next year's project pan as one of the four lipsticks I want to get through.  I do quite like the colour and texture of this lipstick (and Neal's Yard is cruelty free), but I don't think I will buy this product again as I'm thinking of only having one lipstick in my makeup bag in the long run.

The Living Nature eye pencil in Midnight may be a very soft pencil which is easy to use, but it's still taking a long time to get anywhere.  In fact, it doesn't seem to have gone down at all.  I'm glad that I've started this early as I think I'll be lucky to even finish this by the end of 2018.  Living Nature is a cruelty free company, but this product isn't the longest wearing eye liner I've ever used, even when it is set with an eyeshadow.

So that's the end of my project pan for this year.  I didn't use up as many products as 2016 and I decluttered quite a few (something I haven't done before).  I will be doing another project pan next year as an incentive to reduce all my beauty products to the bare minimum. 

Thank you for coming along for the ride and I hope you have a great New Year!

To see my progress so far:

• Introduction
• Project Pan Update #1
• Project Pan Update #2
• Project Pan Update #3
• Project Pan Update #4
• Project Pan Update #5
• Project Pan Update #6
• Project Pan Update #7
• Project Pan Update #8
• Project Pan Update #9
• Project Pan Update #10
• Project Pan Update #11

Living Out of One Bag

My six month traineeship is now over and I'm looking for work in the field of path construction.  Right now I'm homeless and if I do manage to get the work I'm applying for I could be travelling all over Scotland staying in work cottages and hostels.  Due to this I want to be able to fit my life in a bag I can carry on my back.

As a quick disclaimer I'll also be taking my Eurohike wellies carrier in which I keep my work boots, work waterproofs, and work PPE (all of which get very dirty and which I like to keep separate). 

At the moment I have way more stuff then I could possibly carry on my own and after having to move it all down to my parents I am now keenly aware that I have too much stuff.  Firstly I need to go through everything and have a major declutter of everything I don't use and really don't need.  I think I got used to having space in my homes and so kept items I didn't really need.  I also have a tendency to get emotionally attached to things and keep them for that reason only.

Then I need to go through the items I have felt and work out what I need to take with me for work and any additional items for the day's I'm off work.  It's going to be a balancing act between what I want to take with me and what I can actually fit into the bag (which is 65l in size) and carry. 

I'm lucky that my parents have said that I can keep some items at theirs over the next year, but I don't want this to be a long term solution or an excuse to hold onto more then I had originally intended.  So I'm going to be to be very strict with myself and to keep myself on track (and accountable) I'm going to document what I'm doing on this blog.  Even if my life changes I still want to keep what I own to a minimum so this process will still be important.

Mini Film Review: Earthlings

Just like Food Inc I've been putting off watching this documentary (probably more so) as I knew it was going to be a really difficult watch. And it was.

Released in 2005, it was made by filmmaker Shaun Monson, narrated by Joaquin Phoenix, and using footage predominantly shoot using hidden cameras it looks at the suffering animals go through in factory farms, puppy mills, the entertainment industry, research labs, and more.  It even draws parallels between the issues of racism, sexism, and what they have called speciesism.

Separated into sections which first looks at how we treat animals we see as pets, and then looks at animals for food, animals in entertainment, and animals for research purposes.  The documentary didn't show me anything I wasn't already aware of, but there's something about actually seeing it that really brings the reality home.  Perhaps the most disturbing part wasn't just that a person could be so indifferent to the pain of the animals under their care, but that they were actively enjoying inflicting even more pain on them.  Knowing what psychologists say about this type of behaviour and its connection to how these individuals actually treat other humans, it doesn't bode well for the human race.

They do also make some valid points about the connections between factory farming and the spreading of some very deadly disease, as well as the fact that positive results in animal testing doesn't necessarily mean positive results in humans (in these cases they start the tests on 'lower' mammals and work their way up which is meant to make them certain of the medicines safety).  

Whether you believe that all animals deserve to be treated with respect and dignity for their own right or that it's all about the health implications it has for humans, the one thing this documentary does make obvious is how absolutely dependent we are on the animals we show such little respect to.  It has definitely given me more impetuous to carry on becoming more cruelty free in my lifestyle.