How Covid-19 Affected My Spending Habits

The COVID-19 pandemic has drastically made a huge impact on everyone. Who would have thought that we will experience this in our lifetime? Actions became limited as we cannot go far from our homes, jobs were decreased, savings went down the drain and lifestyles have changed. I remember before the pandemic, my son can still attend his therapy sessions but it was halted because of the situation since kids cannot go out. Eventually, we decided to stop sending him at the center because of shortage of funds. Some of my extra gigs were stopped as well so our extra income was reduced.

I am a huge spender on both skincare and makeup products; yet mostly on skincare. I am confident to spend money on these items because I know I am earning extra from my blogging. I always find myself buying the latest product release from the industry. Most of the time my cabinet would be just full of skincare stuff of different kinds. I even have a year's worth of sheet masks, as if I use a sheet mask daily. I was such a huge hoarder and spender way back before the pandemic.

When the pandemic hit, most of my part time work were stopped, events were not encouraged anymore as it creates mass gathering, and brands and sponsors also halted sending their products and items for reviews. Guess they are also experiencing difficulties and challenges in their businesses. Most of the gigs where I used to earn suddenly disappeared one by one. I then realized that I had to intentionally stop purchasing too much skincare products because there is no assurance when this pandemic would end. We need to stop any unnecessary expenses.

Even when sponsors are sending me products for review, I still purchase my own products 60 percent most of the time. The remaining 40 percent were from sponsors which slowly stopped coming in as well. So imagine, how would I be able to create content or do product reviews if I don't have the items I need?

But then, I thought, the skincare industry is just there. I may have missed out on recent innovations but I know that I am doing the right thing. If I am spending $100 dollars or more monthly, that would cost me around $1.2k a year on skincare alone. With this huge amount, of course I had to intentionally stop purchasing and cut back on unnecessary expenses.

Saving is definitely something that we need to consider at this time and situation. Budget planning is necessary to avoid those extra expenses. The beauty products I purchased were investments for my content since I am writing about beauty and skincare. What I can do is to be more creative on them and use whatever materials I have on hand. I am confident that I can still create good content without spending too much. Now, I am even prouder to say that I have cut back almost 90 percent on my skincare purchases because sponsors kept on coming back in and providing me items for my content and they are even paying me. Manifesting the positive is really effective. If there is one thing that is positive with what is happening right now this pandemic, it is the time we spend with our families at home. This makes us bond more and even makes us do wonders that we surely didn't thought was possible.