Over the past few months I’ve been using a few new beauty and skincare products, so I wanted to put together a short post to share the ones I’m loving the most right now.

• I’m using these Bioré strips for the first time ever right now and totally loving them. I don’t know if they’re actually doing anything beneficial for my skin but it is pretty satisfying seeing all the junk they grab every time I take them off.

• I had been trying out a few new liquid eyeliners for a while but always end up going back to this one. It’s cheap and you can get it at Target and it’s just the best. (I use a lot of eyeliner so I don’t usually like to splurge for the pricey stuff.)

• This is my current favorite hairspray. I love how light the mist is but the hold is great.

• The product that inspired today’s post: THIS DRY SHAMPOO! My friend Kate bought it when she landed in California for a wedding a few weekends ago and left it for me. I had never used it before but it is hands down the best budget-friendly dry shampoo I’ve ever used. I posted a photo on Instagram Stories last week and so many of you asked for details on the product, so here we are! Seriously it’s amazing. I spray it very liberally all over my entire head and just leave it there while I do my makeup or whatever, then kind of rub it in right before I walk out the door.

• I’m loving Pacifica products lately—I just started using this cream in the mornings and sometimes at night, but what got me hooked was this night mask. Everything is vegan and cruelty-free and the prices are reasonable for how high-quality the products are. I love the scents and how great they feel on my skin! Looking forward to replacing my empties with more Pacifica stuff as time goes on.

That’s all from me today! Do you have any beauty products you’re loving lately? I’d love to hear about them!

This post contains affiliate links.

I know it can be kind of weird to talk about money, but I’ve always been so interested in budgeting and saving and how people handle finances in their families/relationships; and every time I hear about someone doing a “No Spend” month I’m always really intrigued.

As you may know, I make money from this blog and my cookbooks, and I also work part-time as a Pure Barre instructor. When we moved to California we decided to budget out what it would be like living just on Rob’s income, and then any bonuses he makes and all of my writing and teaching income go straight into savings. We moved in 2016 and managed to pay off the remainder of our student loans in 2017 (just in time to add a baby to the mix), then our car a few months ago, which I’m really proud of since living in the Bay Area is not cheap. I’ve always wanted to be a stay-at-home mom when our kids are young, so it’s been really nice to have the flexibility of blogging and teaching to allow me to still contribute to our savings while staying at home with Sophie since November.

We don’t buy a lot of “little stuff” most of the time but we do spend quite a bit of money on food, coffee, tech, and travel.

Anyway, that’s a lot of information but I feel like it’s applicable to this post! Moving on:

We’ve been traveling a lot the past few weeks and also just made a few purchases that were on the larger side, so Rob and I thought it might be a good time to experiment with our own saving challenge. Instead of going all-out for one month, though, we’re going to pace ourselves with a few exceptions and otherwise not buy anything but groceries and essentials for the rest of the year (!!!). I’m calling it No Spend Q4 2018!

We made a list of things we had planned to spend money on before deciding to do the challenge, so those are our exceptions. This is what that looks like:

• Anything Sophie autumn/holiday experience related

• Piece of furniture for living room/TV area ($200 or less)

• Christmas gifts and new baby gifts for family and friends ($250ish)

• Megan tattoo ($200-300)

• Rob AirPods ($160)

• In N Out dinner on Sunday nights ($100ish)

Beyond that, we’re writing down anything we see that we might have otherwise bought. I don’t usually impulse purchase things, but even for me this has been kind of a fun exercise. Anytime I want to buy something I usually try to wait at least a week, and if I’m still thinking about it then I’ll maybe get it. It’s only been a couple days but I’ve already added a couple things to the list and also decided not to tag along with Rob on a work trip later this month, which would have ended up costing us hundreds of dollars between flights, food, dog sitter, Ubers to and from the airport, etc.

Have you ever done a spending freeze challenge? I’m going to keep up with my list and also check in with another post if you guys are interested in how it’s going. I’d love to hear about your experiences and also if you have any tips!

We just got back from a long weekend in Northern Virginia to celebrate one of my brother-in-law’s wedding and it was so nice. Flying with Sophie is a bit of a challenge but I’m so glad we do it because I feel like we’ve gotten a lot better at it every time.

Today I’m home waiting for a dishwasher repair technician to show up (third time’s the charm, right?) and catching up on a few things so I thought I’d pop in with a quick post and a list to let you know what else I’ve been up to since I’ve been pretty absent on the blog lately: 

• Keeping our house really clean, staying on top of laundry, and realizing just how much constant tidying and wiping and folding it actually requires. 
• Learning new Pure Barre choreo for the classes I’m teaching this week. 
• Going to bed so early every night, especially when we were out of town. 
• Getting excited about my blog redesign and new logo/branding. 
• Gearing up for a no-spend challenge, which we’ve never done before but I’ve always wanted to do. 
• Signing up for a food photography course! 

What have you been up to lately? After a busy few weeks I’m so happy to be back!