Every year, many people who make New Year Resolutions usually include something about eating healthier, exercising more, save money, or just spending less of it on things that they don’t necessarily need. Contrary to popular belief, Blythe is not a need (I know, I know), it is a want. As many of you may already know, I am a student and currently unemployed. I sadly cannot live off of sunshine and clean air, because if you know anything about British Columbia in the winter months, is that there are many days with zero sunshine.

A personal challenge to myself for the first month of 2015 is to do a No Spend month, and it sounds as fun as it is. My exceptions are: tuition, groceries, gas, regular bills, and other necessary things in life. Necessary things would be like medication, and not doll shoes. (Personally, I think that doll shoes are a necessity in leading a cute life, but somehow I don’t think that would make it a challenge if that was an exception…)

“More dresses for me? Great!” – Kitty Brighton

So in addition to my current goals for the new year, I will also be including a limit on dolly-things-spending until August. To make it fun, I want to limit myself to $15 a month (starting from February) to put towards doll things or crafting materials to make things for my dolls. It’s a high enough budget that I could definitely purchase shoes or a dress, but not so high that I’m adding to my stellar designer dolly frock collection, if you know what I mean. $15 a month is an affordable amount of frivolous spending money, for me. An affordable monthly budget for you  may be different for you, based on your own income and financial responsibilities.

August will be my ‘big’ dolly spending month because, hello BlytheCon! and I will be employed by then *knocks on wood*.

For my set limit when determining my budget, I looked at what I spent on dolls and doll things last year, divided it by 3 and then divided it by 11 months (since January is a no spend month). That way I’ll be spending less this year (overall, hopefully, despite August) on dolls and doll things. Three cheers for keeping things under control!