It's Been Amazing ...

 

It's been amazing this year how long my stash of toiletries has lasted me, and continues to last me.

At the start of this year in a bid to cut shopping and save myself money, and also to monitor how long things last me, I decided to stop buying anything new and instead use up all the toiletries that were laying around in various places around the lodge.  They were everywhere initially, in the bedroom drawers, the basket in the wardrobe, in various make-up bags etc etc. as well as in the obvious place ... the bathroom.

I had lots of the freebies that Alan picks up when he stays in hotels on business trips, tiny shampoos, shower gels etc, I had stacks of things I had bought when they were on offer last year, toilet wipes, tissues and soaps,  and gifts from from family to me from the last two Christmases.

My first priority was to get rid of all the little bitty bits, and try and make what I had more logical.  In some ways I was saving the best for last, as I used up the sort of things that I wouldn't have dreamed of buying myself and all the annoying half full packs and containers of things.

Now I am down to the last little bar of hotel soap.

 The final bottle of Dove shower body wash.

(I don't clean my teeth in the shower, that's my old 'cleaning in small spaces' toothbrush that I use on the grout lines etc. 😄)

The last container of the body lotion from the Christmas gift pack two years ago.

Now things are starting to get much more logical and the stash is greatly reduced.  Everything fits in the two small baskets in my little bathroom shelf unit, one of which is in the top picture next to the contents of the other.  It was good going through everything this morning as I found a hand-cream that I didn't know I had, so that's another couple of weeks without having to buy a tube of hand-cream then. 😀

The only other things that I have are in the bathroom cabinet, including my stash of face creams, which were all bought in the week between Christmas and New Year last year when they were on a good offer, saving me over £5 a pack ... I'm glad I stocked up.

 It's good to be on the journey to just have in stock the few items that I use and need, and to be slowly getting through all of the things that I don't particularly like.  For instance I don't like shower gels or liquid soaps in plastic bottles, I'm a bar soap girl through and through and always have been.  I like one sort of body lotion that comes in a tub not a squeezy bottle, that way there's no fighting to get every last little bit out and I can remember what it smells like, unlike things that people have bought me that I have no idea about, and I don't like lots of choices ... I like the things that I like, and if they work for me I don't really see the need to experiment with others.  So I tend to want to have one bar of soap, one tube of toothpaste, one face-cream, one hand-cream, one deodorant, one shampoo etc etc.

I've been thinking about next years finances a lot this weekend, and getting right back to basics is going to be very necessary next year when I retire a year early and yet have no state pension coming in.  It's not scary in the least, in fact it's somehow strangely invigorating the thought of it all.

Sue xx