In these days with shopping deals, coupons, and credit cards, how can one overcome the addiction to shopping? Temptation is all over the stores. From buy one get one frees to spend $___ and get free shipping. Especially if you're a college student or someone who just graduated, credit card companies are headed your way. Telling you that you won't get any interest charges for X amount of months and giving you cash back on your purchase. There are many different ways that they are trying to lure you in but you have to decide whether that's a good investment for you.

Speaking from personal experience, credit card debt is no fun. You get your pay check and have to spend it mostly on the upcoming months bills. If you have more than 1 credit card, that's even more money your dishing out to pay someone back rather than saving or using it on yourself. How can you avoid falling into the trap of spending your money and taking out credit cards? Here are some helpful tips.

•  Do you really need it?

Ask yourself, Do I really need this right now? If the answer is NO, put it back. Don't waste your money on something right now that can be used for something more important. Chances are, whatever you want will be on sale at a later time or even have coupons in the mail.

• Are you financially secure

If you take out a credit card, are you able to keep up with monthly and full balance payments? If the answer is NO, do not open a new card. Nothing is worse than trying to buy things with money that you don't have now and don't have later. Wait until you're able to afford paying back whatever money you check out. 

• Don't fall for spend $__ and get $___ off

When you have deals that are spend $30 get $10 off, they seem like a good idea but it's the investors way of getting you to spend more money. Especially if you were going to the store to buy one thing that costs $5. Stores will get you to spend more money just to get $5 or $10 off. 

• Open a savings account

Chances are, when you put money into your savings account, you're most likely not going to spend it. Have your bank set it up so that a certain amount of money gets transferred to your savings once or twice a month. This will help you to save your money instead of spend it. 

I wish I had someone to teach me about saving money and credit cards, then I wouldn't be in the position I am now. With these helpful tips, I'm going to work on saving money and hopefully you can to! What other tips do you have for saving money and not falling into credit card traps? Leave a comment down below!

"Glamour Academy" Ipsy's 2013 August Glam Bag

Hey ladies,

This months Ipsy glam bag was called Glamour Academy. It featured products from brands like Urban Decay, Michael Todd, Pixie, Mica Beauty, Pacifica, Smashbox, Chella, City Color, NYX, Noya, and Nailtini. Out of all these brands, we got 5 products based on our personal Ipsy quiz. The products were either a lipstick, lip balm, mascara, eyebrow pencil, cheek stain, nail polish, eyeshadow, facial scrub/mask, or blush. I was fortunate enough to get products from Urban Decay, Michael Todd, Pixie, Mica Beauty, and Pacifica.

The first product I got was the revolution lipstick by Urban Decay in the color Anarchy. It's a creamy lipstick but way too bright for my preference. Preferably a product that I would use if I was going to a night time party or club. It's very small and travel sized. Pretty moisturizing to the lips as well. 

The second product I got was this Pixie lash booster mascara in darkest black. I really like this mascara, it gives you a good even distribution without causing a lot of clumps. It makes my eyelashes more longer than giving it volume. Definitely a product that you can build up to achieve the lashes you desire. It's also a travel size. 

The next product was a Mica Beauty eyeshadow in the color Bronze. To get the color to pop more, I would use a nice eye primer or maybe even a lighter brown shade. You can get a nice brown smokey eye with a little bit of glam using this product. It lasts pretty well and is easy blendable if you don't want too much shimmer. 

Probably my favorite product ever from this months bag is this Michael Todd jojoba charcoal facial scrub. Yes, it is black because of the charcoal. When using this product, you want to gently rub it into your face, not too much though and if you let it sit for a few minutes, it's like you can feel it working on your face. I love it, sometimes I just want to keep it on my face for a while but after rinsing your face feels nice and soft. 

Last but not least, I got Pacifica's multi-mineral BB cream. It feels pretty light and gives good coverage. I can't say how good it is though because I don't really get break outs or anything. It gives enough coverage to make your skin tone even but also if you have beauty marks, you'll still be able to see them. 

This was what I got from my bag that was personalized for me. Ipsy is only $10 a month, free shipping.  You can get extra rewards for having other people sign up with your own personal link like mine here. Everything you get is based on your quiz and if you don't like a product you have the option to send feedback and let Ipsy know that you don't like that particular product or products like that. I just love Ipsy and will forever be a subscriber! From one beauty lover to another, see you soon!

Incorporate coconut oil into your daily life

With all these new products and tons of chemicals we don't know how to pronounce or what they do, why not bring it back to the basics? Natural and raw products that love our bodies as much as we love them. So what's a natural oil you can incorporate into your daily life? COCONUT OIL!

Coconut oil is moisturizing for your skin, conditions the hair, and strengthens the nails. Coconut oil has vitamin E in it that helps to make your skin smooth, soft, and younger looking. For your hair it can help with grown, damage, dryness, moisturizing, conditioning, it does it all. When it comes to your nails, it can help condition cuticles and can be used to moisturize and condition your hands/feet. 

So how can YOU incorporate this into your daily life? Well, I'll tell you. 

So it's the day before school right? Your hair is feeling your dry along with your feet and hands. So what do you do? Get out your trusty RAW coconut oil. 

To condition your hair, take 1 inch sections and use about half a tablespoon of coconut oil to lather your hair. Rub it between your hands until it melts and feels about oily. Do this all your head. Make sure to comb through with a wide tooth comb. Now you can either wash it out after 30-40 minutes or leave it in over night. Make sure to shampoo well enough so that all of the oil is out of your hair. This will leave your hair feeling soft and shiny. Style as you want, and head off to school!

Rough feet but not enough time to head to the salon for a pedicure? Use the coconut oil to soothe roughness from your feet. You want to do this over night so just take a generous amount of coconut oil and rub it between your hands. Rub it onto your feet focusing on the rough parts and put a sock on immediately after. Wear them over night and the coconut oil will condition your feet throughout the night. 

Now lets talk about nails. Again, you didn't have time to go to the salon so take the time out to do your nails yourself. Push back those cuticles, file, and paint your nails as you please. After fully drying, take some of the coconut oil and rub it into your nails and cuticles. With whatever's extra, just rub it all over your hands. 

That's all the prepping for the night, now it's the day of school. You wash your face to find out you ran out of your favorite moisturizer. Don't worry though, take a little bit of coconut oil (less is more) and rub this on your face. Your skin will soak it all up without feeling greasy. Just keep in mind that less is more and you'll be good. 

Out of your favorite lotion also? Don't worry about that either. You can use the coconut oil in place of lotion to condition your skin as well. As for you hair, if you want to give it that extra shine, just rub a little bit throughout your hands and run it through your hair! Vuala! You have just used coconut oil to deal with some of your basic beauty needs. 

Did you also know you can use coconut oil for cooking in place of other oils and butter? That's another topic to post about though. How do you use coconut oil in your daily routines? From one beauty lover to another, see you soon!

Apologies

Hey ladies,

I apologize for not blogging for a while. I just haven't been feeling like myself lately and blogging just wasn't going to happen. I'm feeling much better though! So for those of you that do read my blog, I'll be updating a lot throughout the week. I'm thinking about doing some scheduled posts, just so I can post one every day, but I'll think about it some more. Thank you for your patience! I'll see you soon.

EM by Michelle Phan

Have you guys seen Michelle Phan's new video? If you haven't, please check it out! I've been waiting for this for so long. Her own make up line!! She's such an inspiration and definitely where I'm trying to be in the next few years. If her dreams can come true, so can mine! She shows us that with faith, love, and determination/hard work, anything is possible. I'm so excited to see her collection on August 15th. Did you expect YouTube's most famous beauty guru to come up with her own line? I'll definitely keep you posted about her line. From one beauty lover to another, see you soon!

Starting Over

It's been such a busy week for me. Between working over night shifts at work and my cousin's wedding yesterday, I just couldn't find the time to get my work outs in. Now I just ruined my whole process and instead of starting where I was, I'm going to start over. It wouldn't be very effective to just pick up where I left off or double my work outs to get both days in or whatever. So, I will be starting from the beginning yet again to make sure I get the most of out both challenges as I can.

Sometimes I just feel like giving up and not doing it at all but for me, in order to feel beautiful on the outside, I must feel beautiful on the inside. The only way to do that is to eat clean and train hard. Once I start seeing results and feel as if I have more energy, things will get better. I know that my confidence will increase and I'll probably believe in myself more.

To help me out, I'm going to keep a little journal or something like that to help keep me motivated. Also, to make sure to write down when I do do my workouts. I also noticed that I will procrastinate and wait until the absolute last minute to do them, which is my downfall. If I just get up and do it when I wake up, I'll have time to do other things throughout the day. It's all about priorities and motivation. With the little support I do get, I will overcome my boundaries.