Steph's Weekly Low Buy Spending Recap #20
I've done something you might think is weird and crazy...
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Hello my beautiful Petunia! Can you believe this is the 20th spending recap!? It feels like an appropriate time for it to be starting to evolve a little bit. I have a lot of ideas of little ways I would like to tweak and improve these newsletters!
Don't worry though, the bulk of the content isn't going to be changing and you will still be getting the same old recap of how I spent my money this week 😊
As always, this post is too chock-full of goodness to fit in an email so you’ll find it cuts off at the end. Make sure to view in your app/browser to get the best experience!
It's been two weeks since I've spoken to you in this capacity, how have you been? The week before this last week was a little bit of a spendy week for us as it was my husband's birthday. This past week was less speedy but thoroughly and incredibly out of routine.
It was Matt's birthday last Monday and he took the week off, and then we also had family visiting for the last four days of last week. It feels really good to be getting back to routine now… But man my sleep is on another level of messed up. 😂
I also did something that you might think is a little bit insane. I sold my pretty, pink iPhone 16 and bought a used iPhone 12 mini to replace it. I'm not counting the spending that happened from the proceeds of that sale in with the usual budget because I sold the iPhone 16 specifically so that I could replace it with other items, so I'll put a section at the end of the recap talking about how I spent what I made selling my iPhone.
It's safe to say though, I'm definitely committed to the dumb phone/digital minimalism life. It doesn't mean I have everything figured out, I'm very much still on a journey of working out exactly what is going to work best for me going forward especially in light of my job in social media, but I have officially been using a dumb phone for a month and I do not want to go back. It's greatly increasing my ability to focus, it's helping me to notice the world around me more, I think it's also decreasing my anxiety a little bit… But ultimately it's just making me feel more like I actually own my brain and I really like that feeling.
I also wanted to thank you for your support, and celebrate a little! After my last spending recap post my little ‘buy me a coffee’ link at the bottom of each newsletter got quite the workout and I’m so incredibly grateful, you honestly have no idea how much support like that means.
I also officially got FULLY monetised on YouTube, which means my videos are now earning ad revenue! It starts small, but I’m so proud of myself for finally sticking to YouTube long enough to make it happen (I’ve been dabbling with YouTube on and off for TWELVE WHOLE YEARS) and I’m so grateful to anyone who has taken the time to watch my videos!!
If you haven’t checked out my channel yet, you can find it here 😊
Actually looking at my spending recap I'm now realising there's not a lot to recap this week. As you'll see (if you can read my chicken scratch) a lot of our spending this week was very run-of-the-mill. I'll recap a little bit, but I think most of this post will be talking about selling my iPhone!
Monday was Matt's birthday! His absolute favourite thing to have for breakfast is McDonald's hotcakes and hashbrowns so I ordered Uber eats for our breakfast. Yes, it would've been cheaper to go and get it and that was my original plan but I woke up not really feeling very well so Uber eats it was!
We didn't do much else for his birthday at his request, we just stayed home and relaxed and he played a lot of PlayStation! A day well spent.
We had all of the medical appointments on Tuesday, which meant we ended up getting lunch out. Things took a little bit longer than they should have, but we got what we needed to done and we made it home alive 😂
We did our weekly groceries today! We didn't get them delivered though as we didn't really need a lot. We don't have as much of a plan for meals and food when we have family staying, we tried to keep things fairly relaxed which meant that we didn't need to buy much specifically. We mostly stocked up on weekly necessities like bananas and milk.
I skipped doing my usual grocery haul YouTube video this week because we had family around, but you didn't really end up missing much! We only ended up spending $46.74. The rest got spent along the way throughout the week though, and we used some of our grocery money to refill our gas bottle for the barbecue later in the week as well.
The rest of the week spending wise was fairly uneventful! A couple of small purchases on Saturday while we were out at the shops, and then on Sunday we spent $35.85 at Bunnings on some fairy lights and glue. We've started stringing fairy lights up in our backyard, we already had two long strings from our previous house! Somehow though, this house doesn't actually have a light outside so the fairy lights wall absolutely beautiful are also serving a functional purpose. We are playing around with ideal placement so that it also lights the area where we have the barbecue well so that we can… ya know… actually see when we're cooking our food 😂
Because of that we opted to get a third string. Now we just need to run the second and third string! I love that it's getting darker earlier and we get to enjoy these lights even if we go to bed early.
I seriously think fairy lights are such an underrated way to add cosiness and ambience! We have fairy lights all throughout our house and it just really makes it such a nice place to be.
Selling my iPhone
Okay, let's chat going completely against the grain!
I had an idea that this would be where I would end up, but I didn't want to make a decision too quickly or too rashly, so I sat on this decision for a few weeks even though I was fairly sure it was what I was going to do.
I just… Don't need a super fancy iPhone! My iPhone lives mostly in my desk drawer now, and I only use it occasionally when I absolutely have to for my social media work, or as a GPS if I need one. I'm working on driving more from memory than relying heavily on my GPS, but there's always going to be times where you go somewhere when you do actually need a GPS. Fun fact, you can use Waze and Google Maps off-line!
So, I sold my pink iPhone 16. And I replaced it with a teeny tiny iPhone 12 mini. Still new enough that it will run the things that I need to, but small enough and simple enough that it's also not enticing to sit and scroll through it.
It also takes up less room in my handbag, which is a great bonus.
So, in case you can't read the chicken scratch in the photo of my expense tracking above, here is the breakdown:
IPHONE 16 SALE PRICE: $950
Bought with the proceeds:
iPhone 12 mini $240
DJI Osmo Pocket 3 $500
Panasonic Lumix point and shoot camera $160
Left over: $50
I have a camera currently, a Canon M50 I, but I've really struggled with it as far as filming video goes. No matter what settings I've changed. I've continued to have footage that ends up looking strange colour wise, and it's also kind of bulky to use for easy filming. I love it for photos though, and I'll be keeping it, but it's definitely not a convenient take-everywhere-with-you type camera.
Enter the DJI Osmo pocket 3 and the Panasonic Lumix!
The DJI Osmo Pocket 3 definitely has more of a learning curve than I expected, but I know it's going to make filming especially YouTube videos significantly easier! And I wanted to have a camera that I could throw in my handbag and be able to take photos with while I was out and about without it taking up a tonne of room in my bag. This camera was in great condition too, the owner still had everything in the box as well as two batteries… The clear plastic is still on the back screen and everything!
With the remaining $50 I'm going to look at buying a bag. My current handbag situation really doesn't suit having multiple items to carry around instead of my iPhone. Instead of one iPhone I'm now carrying around my Kindle, point-and-shoot camera, planner/wallet, a notebook… and it's really not fitting very well in my current bag.
But I also have chronic pain and illness things to take into account, so just getting a larger tote bag isn't exactly a solution, I'm on the hunt for a bag that ideally will transform from a crossbody bag to a backpack if it gets a bit too heavy… And I think I found one! I actually placed an order last night for two different bags, and the plan is to pick from the two and then return the one that doesn't suit. I will update you next week… Hopefully they've arrived by then!
It always feels really good when I'm able to make a direct swap of things. Selling something to them finance the thing that I want instead, and not taking any money out of the budget. I've actually done this multiple times when I've wanted to makeover rooms! Sold all the items that I didn't want and then used the proceeds to buy the new items, I've done this with a living room or two in the past… But most recently I've done it with our office. A lot of the IKEA furniture that we currently have was bought with the proceeds of selling other things!
As much as Facebook marketplace can be a massive pain in the butt, it's still incredibly helpful and I love it!
Well, there you have it! Another week done and dusted. I'm definitely still trying to air on the side of not spending very much. I really think we could use a few no buy weeks.
I actually had someone ask me this past week what would be my best advice for someone that's just starting out with trying to be a lot more mindful with their spending and I sincerely can't recommend doing a no buy week enough.
Nothing will highlight to you your habits more than just forcing yourself to stop spending for a week or even two. But it's not even about the money that you'll save not spending anything, or not buying anything that's not essential, for a week or two. It's really about what it will teach you. It will bring to light whatever your money issues really are. For some, you might find that doing a no buy week is really easy because you hold onto your money with an iron grip out of fear… Therein lies something that you might want to work on!
For others, you might realise that actually you spend the most money when you are upset or bored. And that you don't really know how to make your own joy or have fun without money! Therein lies something that you may want to work on.
Whatever it is that you need to work on, I know by week or two will really help to make that really clear and obvious for you so that you don't have to just be guessing.
If you feel like you'd like more guidance on how to actually reflect on your money habits while doing a little no buy reset I have a great resource that you might enjoy. It's two weeks worth of small podcast episodes that will walk you through a bunch of different reflections and exercises to help you actually understand why your habits are the way they are, and help you to build some supports that actually feel good and supportive rather than harsh.
You can check it out (complete with a full curriculum overview of what’s inside) here:
Recommendation of the week!
I’ve been really loving Mumford & Sons new Album Prizefighter! I was a bit nervous to listen to it as I’ve taken an unintentional break from Mumford and Sons music over the years, I didn’t even realise they’d released another album semi-recently (Rushmere) and you know how music changes over time. I adored their first and second albums (and have both on vinyl which shows my dedication), but I wondered if they’d still have a similar sound.
I think their music has definitely matured and changed a little, but at the heart of it all it’s still really similar. The surprise guests especially in the first two songs on the album were a sheer delight! My favourite songs at the moment are Here and Alleycat and I thoroughly enjoyed being able to see them live recently 😍
I also want to wish any mothers in the room a happy mother’s day for this coming Sunday! And if mothers day is actually more of a difficult day for you, know that I relate and I see you and I hope you’re able to have a peaceful day despite the complicated emotions that such a day can bring ❤️
I’ll catch you next week!
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