Spendy, spendy, spendy!

I've had a spendy couple of weeks. I came home from a vacation in Jamaica to yet more family crisis that has really been weighing heavily on my mind these past two and a half weeks and I think that is a big contributing factor to how much I've been spending these past couple weeks.

I've been buying clothes (needed for work), make-up, earrings, a Keurig, perfume and shoes (all not needed (well, the Keurig is debatable)), and skin care (needed but did not need to buy Lancome). I think that is everything.

I bought the earrings as I was invited to a Stella & Dot show and wanted to support both the hostess and her daughter, the consultant. They are nice earrings, sterling silver and turquoise, and I know I will get a lot of wear out of them.

The clothes were definitely needed as I lost over 65lbs last year and nothing in my closet from last spring/summer fits and I can't go around in this world naked.

I have no excuse for the perfume, shoes or make-up.

The shoes have not arrived yet and if they don't fit perfectly or I don't care for them as much in person as online, I will return them and they can be returned to a store so I won't have to pay to send them back.

I am taking one item back to MAC as I don't care for the colour so may as well get my money back rather than keeping it.

I know I'm shopping out of stress due to the family situation and since I recognize it, I hope I can curb it.

A new year, a new look!

Okay, not exactly "new" since we're three months into the year, I know.

I've changed the look of my blog and have somewhat changed the way I am thinking about my finances going forward. I recently took a fairly significant pay cut to get away from a very toxic environment, which meant I needed to re-think my spending and saving plans for this year (and beyond). I haven't fully thought it through and will be meeting with my financial advisor in early April to figure it all out but at this point my intention is to put enough away to be comfortable in retirement but not at the expense of enjoying life now.

I want to do considerably more travel than I have been in the past couple years. Deaths in the family and other family and work commitments have not allowed me to travel as much as I would have liked to lately and that is something I really want to focus on again.

Once I sit down and have some concrete figures in mind, I will change my sidebars.