3 min read

Investing in Your Skin, According to a Financial Advisor

October 8, 2021

Award-winning Financial Advisor and Founder of She's on the Money podcast, Victoria Devine, has built her career on empowering women to be more financially literate. In her balanced approach to inspiring women on how to best enjoy their hard-earned cash, she proves that you can invest in your future as well as your skin. Never thought that financial literacy and skincare went hand in hand? Well, let's dive into how to make the right skinnvestment for you.

It's okay to treat yourself to quality skincare

Since the pandemic began, there has been an absolute boom in people taking their skincare routines more seriously. While good skincare can be expensive and that expense can make us feel guilty, the She’s on the Money team is here to remind you that it’s more than okay to indulge in swankier items from time to time, so long as they align with your values and don’t compromise your larger money goals. In this post, we’re going to tell you exactly why it’s okay to work skincare into your spending priorities, and then we’re going to explain how you can do it in a way that won’t sabotage your savings. Let’s dive in.

Why it’s okay to indulge

One of the things we talk about again and again at She’s on the Money is spending in line with your values. For example, while Person A may love eating out and trying new restaurants, Person B may prefer to spend their money on serums or incredible beauty tech like what FOREO offers. This is okay! What’s really important here is to identify where you feel fulfillment in your spending, so you can work it into your budget and ensure you’re not spending money in meaningless ways.

Money is a reward for your hard work

Sometimes on our journeys to financial freedom, it can be easy to forget that money is also a reward for our hard work, and that it’s more than okay to treat ourselves from time to time. The key is treating yourself to those items that truly satisfy you and that fit within your budget, instead of frivolously spending, craving more, and then racking up huge amounts of debt.

Determine value via cost-per-use method

The next thing we want to highlight is to factor in cost-per-use when it comes to something like skincare, or whatever your chosen indulgence may be. For example, if you’re eyeing off the $299 FOREO LUNA 3 or $395 UFO 2 (aren’t we all?), which seems like a substantial cost to fork out all at once, it’s a good idea to think about how that product could save you money in terms of cost-per-use versus what you would pay for services like facials. Especially when UFO 2 is a supercharged facial masking device that offers treatments in under 2 minutes. We’re no mathematicians, but if you’re someone who loves getting a facial once every second month, then that’s around $1,200 you’ll be spending per year on that service. By investing in something like the LUNA 3 or UFO 2, you’ll just spend that initial fee and then you’ll have that product for years to come, which is cheaper than those expensive facials. [caption id="attachment_10331" align="alignnone" width="264"]

Featured here are Victoria's LUNA 3 and UFO 2 that she regularly incorporates into her skincare roster.[/caption]

How to factor the indulgence into your budget

Step 1:

Set up a budget and take note of where you’re at. To set up a budget, what we need to do is establish an understanding of our cash flow (money that comes in from our streams of income versus the money going out on those essential and non-essential items). Then, instead of setting ourselves up with a restrictive budget, we instead can set up a framework of the amount of money we have to spend in different areas of our life.

Step 2:

To help factor pricey skincare into your budget, it’s a great idea to comb through recent bank statements and note where you’re spending unnecessarily – think your twice-daily oat latte or your unused gym membership. If you can manage to work those spends out of your budget, you could either save that money and put it towards a larger money goal, or you could direct it into something that aligns with your values and fulfills you.

Step 3:

Finally, remember to invest in quality, not quantity. It’s always tempting to grab a bargain and be tempted by cheaper, more disposable items, but you can save so much money by investing in high-quality products that will be used for years to come. We need to re-frame our mindset and choose to have less high-quality products, instead of lots of low-quality products.

The moral of the story? It’s okay to treat yourself to things that are aligned to your values, just make sure it fits within your budget and that it doesn’t compromise other financial goals you’ve set for yourself!