2012 June | Well Heeled Blog

Fess Up Friday: What’s All This Planning FOR?

Written by WellHeeled on June 29, 2012 · 22 Comments

It’s been hard to write about money – mostly because I have now quit my job, packed up my stuff, and gotten ready to clear out my savings to pay for the first year of business school. In short, it’s been a lot of cash OUTFLOW and a bare trickle of cash inflow. I also found out that I was rejected for a pre-MBA workshop that I interviewed for. Even though I know it’s still very early in the process, that rejection made me a little nervous about the whole recruiting / going-without-income / taking-out-loans stage that I am about to embark on.

On a tangentially related note, in past 3 months, I’ve had an acquaintance and her fiance die in a car accident and the husband of a middle school friend pass away from acute leukemia. I just found out that one of my distant cousins succumbed to breast cancer, barely two years after diagnosis. These people died when they were around my age. Then, last night, my mom’s friend called her and said she just got notified by the police: her husband was killed on his commute back from work.

Which brings me to this question – what is all this worrying about money and saving FOR? Obviously, we need money to lead a comfortable life, and we need to save money so that we can be comfortable when we are older and no longer capable of working. Yet all this planning ahead doesn’t change the fact that life can change in an instant.

Guest Post on Add-Vodka: Clothing Alterations

Written by WellHeeled on June 28, 2012 · Leave a Comment

I guest posted on Daisy’s blog on something that’s been sucking up a lot of my money lately: clothing alterations. But now that I see how properly tailored clothes fit and flatter, I am committed to making alterations a permanent part of my clothing budget.

Let me know what you think!

Honeymoon Spending Summary

Written by WellHeeled on June 26, 2012 · 15 Comments

I crunched the numbers, and thanks to credit card sign-on bonuses and miles, we did a 9-day Argentina honeymoon for under $3,000.

Flights (international & domestic): $1,200
All spending in Argentina: $1,560.33
This is broken down into:
(a) hotels: $220. We stayed at a small hotel in a not-so-good part of town for 4 days, which in hindsight was not the smartest decision. The rest of the time we stayed – for free! – at 4-star and 5-star hotels that normally cost $250-$700/night using credit card points.
(b) food & activities: 1,540.33. We went horseback riding, took a private tango class, and ate empanadas almost every single day. Our most expensive meal was supposed to be $135 for the two of us, but a gentleman at the dinner found out that we were on our honeymoon and INSISTED on paying our bill. I couldn’t believe the goodwill of people, but that made me feel so touched. This cost also includes travel medical insurance.

Total spending: $2,960.33 or $328.93 per day

The romance is alive!

Would You Ever Buy a Used Mattress?

Written by WellHeeled on June 22, 2012 · 38 Comments

My current apartment is furnished with furniture thrifted from Craiglist, IKEA pieces, or hand-me-downs from the parents. In fact, our place has no piece of furniture that costs us more than $100.

Now that I am moving across the country, I will need at least new furniture in my bedroom: a bed frame, mattress, desk, etc.

For one split, fleeting second, I considered buying a used mattress off a graduating MBA student. Then I realized that my fear of bedbugs overwhelms my desire to save money. In fact, even my mother (who is the most dedicated saver I know), counseled me against buying used furniture because of the pain and hassle that comes from a bedbug infestation. That stuff is no joke.

Fortunately, Overstock has some bedframes and mattresses for $200 each. That’s even cheaper than many IKEA options! The low prices mean that I can put together a bed & linens for under $500. I can afford it, and I will consider that an investment in my peace of mind. And when I fall asleep, I shall dream of the $2,000 mattress I once tried and loved.

Would you ever buy a used mattress? How about if it’s from someone you know and trust? Or would the “ick” factor be too great to overcome?

Ways To Save on a Hotel

Written by WellHeeled on June 20, 2012 · 7 Comments

This is a guest post by Michelle at Making Sense of Cents. She writes about personal finance related topics such as budgets, student loans, and making money, but also talk a lot about traveling, beauty and food – and especially of her favorite topic – travel!

I’ve found that the best way to save money is to find the best rate you can find on where you’re staying. I don’t like to go to cheap with the place that I choose, because I don’t want to ruin the trip by staying in a place that I hate.

When I went to San Juan last year, I scrimped on the hotel room (but it was still expensive, the room was around $200 a night). That was the cheapest I could find for a hotel that was actually on the beach during peak season.The hotel ended up being great, but the rooms were HORRIBLE.

The hotel was great. It was on the beach, only had around 30 to 40 rooms and it was VERY pretty. But once you opened up the hotel room door, it looked nothing like the pictures online.

There was stuff on the wall (food, some throw up and hair). The bed was dirty as well. It was made but it was very obvious that the sheets were not washed because there was hair in the bed (and a lot of it).

However, we have chosen cheap before and it has worked out great. I think reading reviews is key as well. In the above case, there were hardly any reviews. But for our Miami trip last year, we used Airbnb because we had just heard about it and heard such great reviews.

For our Miami trip in the summer of last year (the white 2 story condo in the picture), we used Airbnb and got the room for around $125 a night for the room. Not the cheapest place we have ever stayed at, but it was across the street from the beach, in Miami Beach, had a canal in the backyard with a boat and kayak for us to use, and a jacuzzi (way too hot in Miami when we went, so we never hopped in).

It was a great deal, and our host was very nice. We talked to him for a bit and he owns multiple properties in the Miami Beach area, but he had managers at each property. He was very easy to get a hold of as well. I believe the personal touches and customer service were great to have.

I’ve looked at other places on Airbnb and I usually fall in love with all of the places. They are always such great deals in nice areas. You can either get a room within a house, a condo, a guest house, or share a room with others.

We also went to Kauai this year, and we used Priceline to bid on our hotel. This was the first time I had ever done this, so I was very nervous. But after looking at many Priceline forums and tips, I got the Sheraton Kauai Resort for $140 a night, whereas it usually started at around $250 a night. I was very happy with this hotel as well!

There are so many ways to save on a hotel:

Sites such as Expedia and Priceline can be great. They usually have great deals, and you can usually call the hotel directly to haggle for an even lower price.
Bid for your hotel on Priceline. We saved a lot on our Kauai trip by bidding for it. We weren’t too specific on what we wanted, just that we wanted to be on the beach, so this made it easy to bid for.
Couchsurfing. I’ve signed up for this site, but I have never used it. It sounds very interesting though. You offer up a room or a couch in your house and hopefully you can crash at someone else’s place for free as well. And these people will hopefully tell you or show you where you should visit while on vacation.
Airbnb. Our Miami trip went very smoothly due to us using this site. You can read other’s reviews (they have to pay in order to leave a review, so they are more likely to be true). [Note: I've used AirBnB twice, and were very happy both times - Well Heeled Blog]

What do you usually do to save on your hotel costs?

Living Without A Car: Am I Crazy?

Written by WellHeeled on June 18, 2012 · 44 Comments

Living in Southern California and having a 35-mile commute means that I drive. A lot. So one of the things I am most looking forward to graduate school is to living close to campus and trying out the car-free lifestyle for a couple of years.

Until I got into the awesome school I am attending and I realized that not that many people go car-free.

There are rumors of cars bumping up against bicylists on purpose. The vast majority of folks who do go without cars are international students. And even though I only live 2.5 miles from school, the road from my apartment to the school doesn’t seem the most pedestrian-friendly: the street isn’t well-lit, Google Maps show missing chunks of sidewalk, etc. I still want to live without a car. Am I crazy?

Financial reasons to live without a car

My car is creeping up on the 260,000 mile mark, so there is no way it can survive the trip from California to the East Coast. I’m not the most handy around cars, so I want something reliable, which means an expensive used car or a brand new vehicle.
I have enough to buy a car with cash, but the more cash I can conserve, the fewer student loans I’d have to take out.
Even though not having a car would mean that I’d have to get more rides from friends (chip in for gas), pay for car-sharing, and take the bus more often, it’s still going to be much cheaper than buying a car. My school offers a free bus pass to students and not having a car means that I don’t have to pay for parking, repairs, insurance, etc. Also, no car = no risk of traffic tickets! That’s the way to live like a student.

Lifestyle reasons to go car-free

I’ve spent my entire adult life driving. I enjoy it and the freedom it brings me (especially on the days without traffic… which in SoCal doesn’t come that often!), but I am ready to try not having a car for once.
I have no idea where I will be after graduation, so I would like to defer the car decision until I know that for sure.
Living without a car is the BEST way to ensure I get some form of consistent exercise (i.e. walking or biking). 2.5 miles is a long way – would take me 45-50 minutes each way – but it’s walkable. At night, I can catch a ride with friends – I will live within 0.5 miles of most of my classmates.
I can also take a bus, and that would be a 30 minute trip including walking to and from the bus stop.

The pros of a having a car would be many, with convenience first and foremost among them. The pros of not having a car are also there, but I would definitely have to make adjustments in how I live my life.

What do you think? Should I try out this crazy thing called “car-free living?”

Where Did You Get Your Financial Habits?

Written by WellHeeled on June 14, 2012 · 23 Comments

This is a guest post from Andrea at So Over Debt, a 29 year-old single mom working to overcome a ton of financial mistakes. Visit her site to read about her journey to get out of debt, make better choices, and help others do the same.

It’s no secret among my family and friends that I’m in recovery from a serious spending addiction. Just six years ago, I cut up around twenty-five credit cards and filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy at the lowest point of my downward spiral. Two years ago, I was in debt again – to the tune of 5 credit cards and over $6000. And a year ago this month, I paid off my final credit card and haven’t carried a balance since. (Yay, me!)

The one thing people always ask is where in the world my habit of overspending came from. My parents don’t live beyond their means, and neither do my grandparents. I was probably in 8th grade before I even knew what a credit card was! Yet it’s exactly those circumstances that molded me into the shopaholic I was. While I’ve come a long way and take responsibility for my choices, my upbringing is the exactly reason I call myself “recovering” instead of “recovered.”

Humans generally form habits in one of two ways – imitation and reverse imitation. We all know what imitation means. It’s the baby who smears lipstick everywhere trying to be like Mommy. Almost every scene in Home Alone. People buying Ugg boots after seeing celebrities wear them. (At least that’s the only explanation I’ve managed to come up with for those atrocities – please don’t tell me otherwise!)

Reverse imitation, though, isn’t always as easy to pinpoint. Ever hear someone say they don’t drink because one of their parents is/was an alcoholic? How about the people who use time-out with their kids because they were spanked growing up? These “reverse imitation” habits are usually an absence of something rather than the presence of it, so they can be overlooked. However, as I’ve learned in my own life, that doesn’t make those habits or traits any less prominent – it just makes them more difficult to break.

My parents never explicitly taught me anything about money or how to manage it. That’s not an excuse or criticism; it’s just a fact. Obviously I saw them spend money, but I wasn’t involved when it came to budgeting and saving it. I didn’t grow up with an understanding of what was going on when it came to the family finances, which left me to form my own conclusions in my childhood head.

Here’s what I “knew” about money as a kid:

I knew that paying bills was really stressful and my mom and dad usually fought about it.
I knew that my sister and I had everything we needed and a lot of what we wanted.
I knew that one could write a check and it was just like actual money.
I knew that I was never ever allowed to look at my mom’s checkbook.

And here’s how that worked out for me in adulthood:

I avoided paying bills until the last minute, viewing it as a horrible experience to be avoided.
I spent on needs, but plenty of wants as well, with no thoughts about exactly how I would pay for everything.
I wrote bad checks and paid overdraft fees constantly.
I treated my checkbook ledger like a bomb that might go off at any second (which, in retrospect, it sort of was!)

In my case, a combination of imitation and reverse imitation led to my poor financial habits. I was so busy picking up the nuggets of “wisdom” above that I missed the bigger picture. Like the fact that my mom bought her own clothes at thrift stores to be able to dress my sister and me like our friends at school. Or the side jobs my dad always took in the fall to earn money for Christmas gifts.

Since I was left to interpret financial matters on my own, I managed to develop a set of behaviors that are the complete opposite of the example my parents tried to provide. This has influenced me to provide my son with overkill when it comes to information about money, all with the hope that he’ll understand and imitate the habits I demonstrate now, not the ones from the past.

Where do your financial habits come from? Can you pick out certain family members who influenced your decisions, either by imitation or reverse imitation? What habits do you hope to pass on to your (actual or potential) kids someday?

Our $7,000 Southern California Wedding: The Budget Recap

Written by WellHeeled on June 12, 2012 · 41 Comments

When: Saturday in June
Where: Southern California
# of people who attended: 35
Initial Budget: $7,000

When I was allocating our wedding dollars, I loved “real wedding” budget posts – blog posts that broke down costs and gave a realistic sense of what kind of wedding is doable with what amount of money. In the spirit of paying it forward, I hope this budget recap will be helpful to brides & grooms out there, especially if you are planning a daytime event in Southern California. Plus, I get to show you some of our pictures! Read on for details on how much getting married cost us.

Ceremony: $532.00 / 8%

We held our ceremony inside this gorgeous city-owned property, which I believe is one of the BEST hidden secrets of wedding venues in California. As you can see, the room comes with leather benches, 12-feet ceilings, and double chandeliers, and needs no decoration. A 2-hour rental only cost $240. Where else can you get that kind of deal?! The only less-than-ideal thing about the room is that it tends to be dark, especially with the morning June gloom. An afternoon wedding would get much more light. The balance of the ceremony budget went to our marriage license, marriage certificates, and an acoustic guitarist. A family friend officiated – we gave him cash as a “thank you” that is included in the Gift section below.

Reception Food & Drinks: $1,961.00 / 29.6%

Our reception for 35 – including bride, groom, photographer, and photographer’s assistant – was held inside at a very lovely restaurant near our ceremony site. We didn’t have to pay a room rental fee and didn’t do much decorating at all. We selected a 2-course plated lunch with a choice of braised chicken with mashed potatoes or grilled salmon with risotto. In addition, we hosted champagne and wine for $300. Instead of a tiered wedding cake, we got three ”regular” cakes in different flavors. The food was pretty darn good, and everyone seemed to have cleaned their plates…at least at my table! By having a daytime event, we saved 25% on the menu vs. dinner.

Attire & Accessories: $1,838.98 / 27.7% (Bride: $987.82, Groom: $851.16)

My dress (from David’s Bridal) plus alterations cost $947.04 – I had to get an emergency $250 alterations job 2 weeks before the wedding. If I had not purchased my dress at retail I could have shaved $200 off this category. Ah well. C’est la vie. It’s mind-boggling how I spent almost $1,000 on a dress that I will wear for ONE DAY. Even more mind-boggling? I don’t regret the expense at all. I felt supremely bridal in that gown… and it was lightweight and comfortable. In addition to my dress, I also bought shoes (Marshalls) and a jeweled brooch (eBay) for the wedding. The only jewelry I wore, aside from my engagement ring, were a pair of pearl earrings that CB gave me the Christmas before. CB was the true budgeteer between the two of us. His Brooks Brothers suit plus alterations came out to $650.66. The shoes, shirt, and tie were all purchased at Nordstrom Rack.

Photography: $900 / 13.6%

What I learned when I first started looking at photographers: it costs more than I, pre-engagement, ever thought were possible. Photography is an area where many brides splurge on, and I can understand why. After all, when the wedding’s over, all you will have are the pictures and the memories. Fortunately, I found someone that I like and that fit our budget. We paid $850 for 4 hours of coverage and digital user’s rights, plus I tipped her $50. We decided to forgo a professional album as we can always print out our pictures later on. Our photographer was just starting out when we booked her, but I really like her style and her personality. Now she is much more experienced and her prices have gone up, but she is still surprisingly affordable. We met up with family an hour before the ceremony to take pictures, skipping the getting-ready shots.

Flowers & Decor: $294.49 / 4.4%

Throughout the whole wedding planning process, my floral mantra has been “fresh flowers plus succulents CAN’T look bad.” That gave me the confidence to DIY everything: 8 flower centerpieces, 1 bridal bouquet, 2 bridesmaid nosegays, and 1 cake table arrangement. Less than two weeks before the wedding, I ordered some succulents from Etsy for a total of $100. I also bought around $20 worth of goblets and glasses from Goodwill. The day before the wedding, my mother-in-law and sister-in-law and I went to the flower market where we purchased around $100 worth of spray roses, roses, lamb’s ear, banana leaves, floral foam, and wire and supplies. I did all of my flowers the night before the wedding – we got done around 12:30 am. It was a last-minute project but quite surprisingly the most fun I’ve had with wedding planning.

Stationery & Website: $54.00 / 0.8%

A family friend did our invitations and thank you cards as an gift. All our invitations just took a regular $0.45 stamp, with the exception of a single invitation to Southeast Asia – that was $1.10. I’m not kidding when I say that our stationery – letterpress on very thick, 100% cotton cardstock from Crane & Co. – is probably THE most-top-of-the-line item we have at the wedding. The cardstock was so substantial that the mailman at the post office asked me if I were mailing CDs! We sent out around 30 invitations, which would have probably cost us at least $200 had we paid for these invites (what’s the going rate for letterpress these days?). $39 went to the premium version of our online honeymoon registry. We got a free wedding website at weddingwire.com.

Gifts & Favors: $500 / 7.5%

This includes a $250 cash gift to our officiant (the same gentleman who did our invitations and thank you cards), the other $250 went to our parents and the wedding party. My mother-in-law did the favors (candy), so I’m not sure how much they cost. I believe it was somewhere around $50?

Hotel: $220 / 3.3%

The night before, we stayed 40 minutes outside of our wedding site because the area is just so. damn. expensive. I used my hotel points for this. The night of the wedding we stayed at a place we found via AirBnB for $220 total for Saturday & Sunday night. In an ideal world, we would be spending our wedding weekend at the Four Seasons (which was around $600/night during the weekend of our wedding. ha!), but that was 1. way outside of our budget, and 2. WAY outside of our budget. You win some, you lose some.

Hair & Makeup: approximately $300 / 4.5%

Hair and makeup were all on my own. In fact, this picture is the first time I have gotten a good look at how my hair looked from the back… I put my hair in foam curlers the night before the wedding and the pinned it with bobby pins in 10 minutes. In most of my pictures you can see a ton of flyaway hairs… but for a DIY hairstyle, I think it turned out really well. For my makeup, I went to Sephora and spent lots of dough. Then I went to Rite-Aid and bought more stuff. I want to consider those “normal expenses” as opposed to wedding expenses, but I probably wouldn’t have went so above budget had I not had the wedding. So.. in the wedding budget they went. It was all worth it, though, because I loved my makeup the day of. And now I have all the products to play with.

Rings: $35 / 0.5%

CB bought a tungsten ring for $35 from Amazon.com. Originally, I planned to get a cheap stand-in wedding band, but then I realized I’m fine with just wearing my engagement ring. There’s no point in getting a cheapie band if I don’t care about wearing a band in the first place. So that’s another cost forgone.

What We Spent: $6,635.47 (or 5% under budget)

A few more tips:

I stand by these 5 tips for a sane and (relatively) stress-free wedding without breaking the bank.
In my experience, it’s easier to cut expenses rather than trim expenses. So we eliminated dancing, reception music (the restaurant provided ambient music), professional florals, engagement photos, videography, transportation, separate hotel rooms for the bride and groom, tiered wedding cake, cake toppers, expensive rings, etc.
The simplest way to keep a low budget is to manage your guest list. That’s not to say you can’t have a great budget wedding with a guest list of 250. It will be much harder, however, to do so with 250 guests than 25 guests. As your guest list shrinks, your reception possibilities open up. Many quirky or interesting venues only host small groups. I don’t feel like we scrimped when it came to our guests, and the only reason we could do that on a budget was to have a small guest list.
Spend a little more on the groom’s outfit, and make sure to get it tailored. A good suit will last ages, certainly far longer than a wedding dress will.
Consider hosting your reception at a restaurant if you 1. want good food, 2. hate hassle, and 3. can give up dancing. Our decision to have the reception at the restaurant is probably one of my smartest. The food was great – better than any wedding food I’ve had before, everything went smoothly, and we didn’t worry about rentals. Our reception felt like a nice lunch party where we were the guests of honor, and it was fun to just relax and catch up with friends.
A wedding goes by in the blink of an eye. Seriously, I was a little surprised by how quickly the whole day passed. Make sure that you will not regret all the work and money you’ve put into an event that really, will be over in 12 hours, max.
On the other hand, wedding budgeting isn’t a competition. You don’t get a prize if you spent $2,000 on your wedding and you don’t get a prize if you spent $200,000. Just don’t start your married life with debt because of the wedding. Life is much better without wedding debt.

How much did you spend / will you spend on your wedding? And just as importantly… do you think wedding budgeting will be a fun process?

Fess Up Friday: take my money NOW!

Written by WellHeeled on June 8, 2012 · 22 Comments

My fall semester tuition ($20,000) isn’t due until classes start in August. But I have this urge to just send over my money to the school RIGHT NOW. Just so I wouldn’t have all this money sitting in my savings account and make me feel richer than I actually am.

I want to adjust my mindset to a new state of, er, reduced circumstances. Maybe then I will stop buying so. much. stuff.

Do you ever want to pay a big bill early?

Is Travel The New Way to “Keep Up With The Jonses”?

Written by WellHeeled on June 7, 2012 · 45 Comments

Here’s something that went through my mind as I click through my friends’ Facebooks and look at the glorious pictures of their time in Europe or Asia or Africa: Can travel become another form of consumption? Another way to “keep up with the Jonses”?

Experts tell us that spending on experiences tend to make us happier than spending on stuff. What can be the best embodiment of experience than a really awesome vacation? Instead of coveting and surpassing the Jonses’ shiny new roadster or Italian handbag or big mansion with a pool, are we now trying to top number of countries visited and rank our most exhilerating experiences? Has trekking through the Australian outbacks, jetting to Paris in the Spring and hanging out in Bali in November become what the “cool kids do?”

I enjoy traveling – I love going to new places and immersing in the sense of “out of the every day” that a good trip brings. But sometimes I feel badly because I felt that I haven’t traveled enough – not enough for my own enjoyment and not enough compared to the people I know. It seems silly to let something that bring me so much joy bring me down because I feel as if I haven’t done enough – after all, some wise man has said that comparison is the thief of joy. I try not to compare, but then those damned Facebook pictures come up. My eyes devour those pictures, like a fashion blogger might covet a Celine bag or a hungry child would salivate at a cake.

It has been two years since my 5 Year Travel Plan post, and I have only made my way to one of those places, and that was for a family emergency, not a vacation. That means there are only 3 years left! Now, instead of trying to keep up with someone else, I’m trying to keep up with the me I thought I’d be. Perhaps I have met the Joneses, and they are us. My biological clock has kept very silent, but I certainly feel the travel clock tickin’. I couldn’t be the only one who feels this way – I have several friends who joke that they are all just driven by this sense of restlessness – to see more, do more, travel more – that is exacerbated by the copious amount of information we have on other friends or friends of friends who seem to jet off to Hong Kong at the drop of a dime or who managed to snag jobs in places such as Austria, Ghana, and Germany.

Do you ever feel the pressure to travel to foreign & interesting locales? Do you think travel has become a status symbol?

I’m Married!

Written by WellHeeled on June 4, 2012 · 46 Comments

This is a quick post to capture my feelings about, well, tying the knot!

I still can’t believe that we are married. In some ways I feel like we are still way too young, and in other ways it feels like marriage will change nothing at all.
It was really nice to see our families and friends all gather around and wish us well. It made me kind of sad that there will never be another occasion where I will have that. Except for, you know, maybe my funeral.
The day passed by SO QUICKLY. I woke up at 6 am because I couldn’t sleep well the night before, and in the blink of an eye the day was over.
Right before I walked into the room, a big group of French? German? tourists exited and took pictures of me on the way out. They were so sweet and wished me the best, and that was kind of a funny moment before I walked down the aisle.
My flowers were fabulous, if I may say so myself. And I DIY’ed all the floral arrangements, including the bridal bouquet you see above. See that succulent rosette? I wired that!
Now that the wedding is over and I’ve had all of 2 days to think about it, I am very comfortable with how much we spent on the day and how we spent it – a full wedding budget recap is coming soon. On the one hand, it’s just one day, and even though I didn’t do ALL that much planning and agonizing and special crafty projects as many of the wedding bloggers I’ve read, there’s still the sense of “wow, all of that work and it’s all over in just a few hours?” On the other hand, it was a really nice day, so I’m glad I spent the money on things like wine and good food, and my dress (because it was a beautiful dress!).
I have a husband! Imagine that.

DIY Wedding Makeup – Not Necessarily Cheaper

Written by WellHeeled on June 1, 2012 · 22 Comments

Guys, I am getting married tomorrow. And here is my confession: I thought I would be immune to all the pressures from Wedding World. But, as it turns out, I am merely human and have fallen into the This Is Only One Day / Must Look My Absolute Best / More Money Will Make It Better traps that I thought I had so cleverly sidestepped.

Oh, hubris.

My plan has always been to DIY my wedding makeup.

I like doing makeup and have done the makeup for several of my friends before a big party or event (although never wedding). I don’t wear much in my day-to-day life, however, and so I have a few high quality powders but not much else in the way of a full makeup arsenal. My year-old tinted moisturizer and brow powder are not going to cut it. Finally yesterday evening I made a last minute dash to the grown-up women’s version of a candy store (Sephora) and scooped up $220 worth of face primer, eyeshadow primer, shadow palette, false eyelashes, mascara, foundation, eyeliner, blush, and highlighter. After an hour of intense studying of YouTube tutorials and Do’s and Don’t articles on bridal beauty, I did a full face makeup in my bathroom that turned out surprisingly well.

So now DIY wedding makeup plan is still on, but it’s not a step that has saved money like I thought it would. Instead, doing my makeup myself is costing me JUST ABOUT what it’d cost to get a makeup trial ($50-$80 plus tip) and a makeup artist to come the day of wedding ($150-$200 plus tip).

If I could do it all over again, I very well might have splurged for the professional makeup artist and planned for a more leisurely morning-of-the-wedding. Oh well! At least I get to keep all the loot afterwards.

Did you DIY your wedding makeup?

P.S. I will be back on Tuesday with the most exciting wedding-related post of all (well, at least to me): the wedding budget recap!