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Sunday 26 May 2013

Day 26 of a self-imposed bead embargo and some maths!

Well I thought I'd pop in and let you know how it's all been going.

Heap'o'beads

The last two weeks have been rather tricky, there have been, and still are, several really gorgeous beads for sale at fab prices and it's been hard to resist snapping up a couple, especially as I was in the right place at the right time for some classic core Navy Galaxies... but resist I did, and to date I still have.

Part of what is helping this week is knowing that I have a "troll date" with some lovely friends next weekend and I've budgeted for this as a special occasion.  If I find the right kit of the Trollbeads Summer Stones 31st May release I intend to indulge myself fully.  Plus there will be so many other beads my friends own to drool over I should get my troll fix by the bucket load, but I needed something more if I'm ever going to spend what I want to on my jewellery without going slightly crazy on all the bargains out there.

So I did some back of the fag packet* maths.

In the first 6 months of this year (providing I stick to my self-imposed bead embargo and budget) I will have still spent the equivalent of 20% of my take home pay on jewellery, mostly Trollbeads, compared to the equivalent of 7% on savings.  Now that maths looks a little bit wrong to me, although I'm sure I can conjure up a fabulous argument regarding investment vs spending when it comes to jewellery, which to some extent is true should I ever decide in the future to sell my collection.  Fat chance of that though, as whilst I may part with the odd bead or two that are not working out for me, I buy my jewellery primarily to wear - not because of it's collectible value.

Having said that I must admit, like many collectors, I do get a certain buzz off picking up something up that's a bit rare or limited/special edition or hunting out, or discovering something that I really want.  All this despite denying what several friends have independently called my Pokemon addiction - although I do see the similarities, especially when I've collected the zodiac birthstone stars, twice!

Whilst you may be amazed that anyone can not spend 27% of their take home pay on everyday essentials, looking back at the last 6 months it has all been at the expense of everything else e.g. very little day-to-day spending on essentials bar what you need to exist, plus the odd bottle of wine, as some things, like last weekend's festival, have been paid for well in advance, 12 months ago in fact for Bearded Theory!

So I've rejigged some figures on that virtual fag packet for what I'd like to be spending on jewellery for the remainder of the year and I'm aiming for an incredible 1.5% of my take home pay and an average of 2% thereafter.  Now I appreciate that most folk don't buy their jewellery like an accountant, nor do I, so this will be an interesting experiment.  Normal willpower hasn't worked well in the past so I thought I'd throw some cold hard logic over the situation to see if that works any better?


*or it's modern day equivalent of a few formulae in an excel spreadsheet

2 comments:

  1. hello,
    I don't usually comment on blogs, but I am quite sympathetic to your bead embargo as I've recently imposed a similar restriction on myself (but not very effectively). My plan was to set a monthly price limit on bead purchases, but in fact, when I reached this limit, I found myself "borrowing" from the next month. Reconciling this self-imposed bead debt would require an embargo from now until September!

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    Replies
    1. Thanks for taking the time to comment, it's great to hear what other people think about this.

      I'm afraid I had to lol at your embargo until September to compensate as I think I will face the same dilemma! I've set my limit quite low (too low possibly) but the whole exercise of working out the maths was the really valuable part of the process as it made me look at it head on.

      I've set my Troll date on Friday as a special 1-off event - the fact it co-incides with possibly my favourite release really was accidental as we've had the Troll date set up months ago, long before there was any hint of this release.

      I think what I really want to get from this (apart from spending less overall on jewellery) is to break the cycle of what I think Victoria first coined a "comfortable rhythm of buying". I've got into a comfortable habit of buying frequently, I'm a great bargain hunter so it's all at a fab price but... the regularity combined with the quantity is just too much for me overall.

      I shall continue to blog about this so I hope you pop back and let me know how you fare with your own buying, I always think the beauty of this goal if I fail is at least I'll have some great jewellery!

      Mars x

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