Day #21 - 30 Day No Shopping Challenge - Give a little bit...

Outfit:

Striped Shirt - Gap

Jeans - Forever21

Shoes - Bongo

Bag - New Look (UK)

All my efforts during the last 20 days have not been in vain.

Although the point of the challenge is to see if I can really make it, the big picture has to do with money. Since I stopped spending, my bank account has grown significantly. And, it allowed me to buy my mother a couple of gifts for Mother's Day. The act of giving definitely is better than receiving.

Speaking of which, the above is what I wore to Mother's Day dinner with my parents, husband and aunt. And, due to the money I've stashed away, it was nice to pay for dinner for everyone, especially for two of the women in my life who mean so much to me.

I'm normally not this candid with the type of money I spend, and while I work and have bills to pay, I am in no way "well-off". I make a normal salary that allows me to pay my bills and have some spending money. It's nice if you can splurge $350 on shoes and whatnot, but for me, that's not an option.

To break it down, my shopping activity looks a little like this (on a weekly basis):

• Mall Trips - Average of at least $50
• Online shopping - Average order of $40 (shipping kills me)
• Misc: Average $30 spent on accessories
• Makeup and toiletries - Average $30 - A trip to CVS for hand soap ends with me buying mascara, nail polish and other stuff that definitely wasn't on the list.

So that's $150 a week x 4 = $600 per month! Um... That's way too much money to be spending on clothes and misc. stuff.

The novelty of not shopping has had some great benefits:

• Physically seeing the savings in my piggy bank
• Being able to buy better gifts for others
• Developing a better thought process for making decisions when spending money "Do I really need this?"

But I only have 9 more days to go... anything could happen.