The Chronic Consumer

I posted about this before, but I guess some readers must have missed it because I’m still getting emails asking me how to treat acne. This is not unusual, as I had been battling what I thought was an acne problem for several years and have fielded similar questions from readers during that time period.

But in this post from last month, I said that it turns out I had some kind of weird fungal infection instead, which is why none of the acne creams and cleansers worked for me. I used a prescription anti-fungal cream and got cleared up in a matter of weeks.

So again, let me just say for the record that I did NOT have an acne problem. I’m sorry for those of you that do, but there are plenty of links on my blog to other sites that carry extensive reviews of acne products, so please click those instead of sending emails to me! The Search function is your friend .

I have bought a ton of stuff during my vacation, which means I’ll have lots of new reviews for this blog in the coming month or so. I’ll be talking about everything from prescription acne creams to Under Armour cold weather gear and a bunch of stuff in between. I completely blew my budget on this trip, spending close to $1,000 on stuff — which is more than I paid for my plane tickets. I’ll need to really cut back in order to recover from this deficit, and maybe do things like find a lower car insurance quote or freeze my credit cards for a while to limit spending for the immediate future.

But I’ll deal with all that stuff later on. In the meantime, I’ve had lots of fun shopping and buying without worrying too much about how I’m going to pay for things. Sure, that’s not a very responsible approach, but I don’t always live like this. It’s just nice to cut loose once in a while!

I need to get back to marketing this blog properly. I’ve been shamefully neglecting it recently, and have watched my traffic dip accordingly. I want to turn things around as quickly as possible, so I’m going to follow all the standard advice about generating blog traffic: visiting other blogs and leaving comments, responding to comments left here, adding keywords and tags, submitting to sites on this directories list, performing some SEO on old posts, etc.

It’s not going to be easy and I won’t see results immediately, but if I stick with these strategies, I should get the traffic boost that I want.

I’ve mentioned before that I’m going to have to limit the number of reviews I post because I have to save money for school. As a result, I’ve just been posting some shopping news, like the latest bankruptcies and product recalls, as well as a few freebies that people might be interested in.

But that’s kind of boring to me, so I’m going to be doing more reviews pretty soon. Yes, they’re likely going to be for really low-ticket items like snack food, candy, and gum, but I guess that’s just the way it goes. And hey, I might end up reviewing the best weight loss supplement as well, if all my snacking leads to some added pounds!

Oh, and I’ll probably end up reviewing some books, college apparel, and other things that have to do with going back to school. Plus, I shouldn’t forget to review some stores here and there as well. I think there’s enough material to keep this blog going for a long time yet!

I don’t think I’m going to be able to do much shopping for fun stuff in the near future, because today I found out that I was accepted to grad school! Even though the program is comparatively cheap, it’ll still costs me thousands per semester in tuition, which is nothing to sneeze at.

I seriously don’t know what I’m going to do about this blog. I definitely want to keep it going, so maybe instead of focusing so much on product reviews, I’ll spend more time posting coupon codes and other shopping deals — whatever doesn’t cost money to write about. Or maybe I can get another part-time job. I’ve seen a few ads from companies that specialize in insurance lead generation and medical billing — stuff that can be done from home. That might be a good option for me and would give me some much-needed extra cash.

I’m not going anywhere, but I need to rethink the direction of this blog.

We always push the tax deadline in my family, so after scrambling to get things done on time, we finally finished and mailed off our return earlier this afternoon. It turns out that we’re slated to get a bigger refund than I initially anticipated, so we’ll be able to splurge a little and treat ourselves to something nice. This will be a welcome change from all the scrimping and saving we’ve been doing recently, and I’m looking forward to it!

Judging by Jerry’s recent Internet searches for deals on Vegas hotels, I think it’s safe to assume that he would love for us to finally be able to visit Sin City for a weekend. That would be terrific, but I’m leaning towards spending the money on something more practical. I haven’t updated my wardrobe in ages, so that’s high on my list, as is hiring a contractor for more remodeling work around the house.

Granted, neither of the things I want to do would be as fun as a gambling junket to Las Vegas, but I think they’re a bit more sensible at this point. We’ll see!

I’ve really been slacking off in the review department recently. There are a number of reasons for this, including the fact that I’ve been working a lot more at my outside-the-home job than I usually do, I’ve been busying applying to grad school, and I simply haven’t been buying as many products as I normally would, thanks to the economy.

Nevertheless, I do have several items that I have to review soon, so here’s a quick list (which should serve nicely as a reminder for myself):

• Desert Essence Jojoba Oil
• Mighty Bright Book Light
• DVDs
• Burger King Ketchup & Fries Potato Chips
• Burt’s Bees Pore Refining Mask
• A new diet pill I’ve been trying for the past week or so

I don’t know when I’m going to find the time to write all of these reviews up. It will probably take me at least a couple of weeks to get through them all because my schedule is still full through the end of April!

I know that the economy sucks right now and no one has any extra money to spend. But a lot of great, worthwhile organizations are suffering from a drastic lack of donations these days, so I wanted to take the time to remind you not to forget about your favorite charities.

Yes, it’s hard to scrape together extra cash. I’m not saying you should go out and make a bunch of outright donations if you can’t afford it. Instead, why not buy something useful from the charity’s online store? If you need some new clothes, check to see if the organization you want to support has t-shirts, sweatshirts, or jackets for sale. Ditto with new coffee mugs, pens, pencils, calendars, water bottles, or keychains. You’ll be getting items you love, while still giving a charity some much-needed funds.

How can you come up with extra money? I don’t know… Use coupons when you go grocery shopping, vow to save an extra 10% of your budget this month, shop around for a lower car insurance quote, cancel a few subscriptions to magazines that you don’t need. There’s always a way!

Whether you love to support children’s charities or ones that help animals, promote religion, or protect the environment, don’t let those important causes die out in this economic crisis. Do what you can to help them!