Also the scented wax coffee blends, but more on those in a second.
In my end-of-the-month spending assessment for March, I indicated that I hadn’t yet worked up the nerve to address the spend-a-thon I enthusiastically undertook in 2017 in any real detail. Frankly, I was scared. It’s difficult to confront hard and unflattering financial truths, isn’t it? But Mr. Finger Candy and I recently made some smarter-than-usual financial decisions, and they have paid off in our ability to hopefully very soon book a second, interim Disney vacation between now and our bought-and-paid-for trip at the end of the year. We’re even looking into becoming annual passholders. This would have been completely incomprehensible this time last year for a wealth of reasons, including our actual wealth – hard to go on lots of fun Disney vacations when every cent you’ve got (and plenty of those you haven’t) goes into wax or nail polish or streamable media or video games.
So I took the plunge, and the total as represented through my PayPal account alone was startling – over $5,000 Canadian. Feel free to let your jaw rest there on the floor for a bit – mine certainly took a while to rejoin the rest of my wide open mouth. Distressingly enough, that $5,000 doesn’t even represent the purchases I made on a credit card, or the almost vulgar amount of shipping and customs fees I paid out of pocket. Those alone could total in the thousands.
So yes, this was a hugely unflattering look into last year’s apparent total abdication of financial responsibility, a state we’re only now emerging from thanks to a lot of “sacrifice” and daily diligence. But it was also a necessary peek behind the curtain, where of course there was a wizard furiously pulling the levers, a nasty little gremlin in dinky short pants who encouraged us to replace life with things. Turns out, neither one of us was particularly enjoying the gremlin’s not-so-sage counsel, which is the moment we decided to really turn things around.
I love my nail polish and my scented wax and Mr. Finger Candy loves his Apple purchases and his GTA DLC, but I think life experiences, as well as the comforting assurance that your finances are not a total clusterbiff, are more important to us now. God, getting old can be such a drag, suddenly you’ve got to be all responsible and shit. 😉
As always, some of that responsibility is manifested in the mantra of “Don’t buy more; just use what you’ve got.” I’ve been following this sage advice for a while now, picking up books that have been sitting on the shelf for years, watching movies that have been sitting on the shelf for even longer and melting through my formerly extensive collection of scented wax. At the beginning of all of this, I estimated that I probably had enough wax on hand to keep me going for eight or nine months. Nine months may have been a bit of a reach, but eight is looking doable. I very much hope the end coincides with a really fantastic Rosegirls sale, or a SMT customs opening. My Mini Melter cupboard is beginning to run bare (not an actual cupboard; I didn’t go that hog wild!)
And the cupboard is running bare because I have been going nuts on the Mini Melter blends, conjuring up all sorts of fun creations in an effort to not deplete any one scent category completely. Which didn’t stop me from going further nutso on the coffee blends this month – apparently I was really feelin’ the java! Here are some of the more successful scent blends I came up with, in case you too feel like getting experimental with your scented caffeine.
Absolute Coffee/Marshmallow Smoothie/Monster Cookie/Raspberry Sauce
Starting with a tried and true favourite, we have the pleasant bitterness of Absolute Coffee as set against warm brown sugar cookies, fluffy marshmallow cream and tangy, ultra fruity raspberry drizzle. Egads, this is a yummy blend! You’ll note that save for one bakery-heavy combination, everything I’ve highlighted here is a fruit-and-coffee combo. Very strange, as I generally loathe flavoured coffee, particularly the ones that are supposed to smell like fruit (my husband used to love the stuff; I still kept him.) 😉
Blackberry/Vanilla Hazelnut Latte
This juicy, fruity treat is equally delicious when paired with scrumptious Marshmallow Smoothie, but I’m down to my last three pieces of my Precious, so I must conserve. But this blend doesn’t suffer from a lack of creaminess; there’s plenty of that provided by the rich Vanilla Hazelnut Latte, which holds its own nicely against the super juicy Blackberry.
Royal Sugar Cookie/Snickerdoodle Latte/Waffle Cone
Next up we have what is probably my least favourite of the four blends, and that’s because I’ve never been fond of Snickerdoodle Latte, the scent that forms the coffee base of this sweet bakery treat. To me, it’s always smelled very sweet, very powdery and very phony – like Swiss Miss instant coffee mix. It fared a little better paired alongside buttery Royal Sugar Cookie and toasty, sugary Waffle Cone, but it’ll never be a favourite.
Absolute Coffee/Apple Clove Butter/Marshmallow Smoothie/Monster Cookie
Finally, saving perhaps the very best for last, we have what should be an incongruous mix of bracingly strong coffee, warm and creamy bakery and spiced apples? Sounds abhorrent, smells positively delicious, like a warm, cakey apple fritter. It’s the closest thing to a total dupe of a favourite Sniff My Tarts custom – very fortunate, as I’m running low on that gem as well. Fruit and coffee – seriously, who knew?!
Next month/this month? More of the same financial goodness and cents sensibility, only this time accompanied by slightly fewer coffee-based blends – I’m in danger of running out! Perhaps an “Anything but Marshmallow” (and Coffee!) challenge would stretch my blending legs, hmm? 🙂
Finger Candy 