Being a woman is expensive

I was doing some shopping and as usual was aghast at how much the little things add up. I am a drug store junkie and could spend hours wandering through at all the different lotions and potions one finds there. Rarely do I go hog wild but it's hard not to.

I did a mental count of all the 'necessary' items a girl needs and was amazed at the cost.

Now granted my list of 'essential items' might be very different than other girl's list...perhaps longer, perhaps far shorter. I am not all that high maintenance but neither am I plain jane frugal, so the following is just a generalizing and estimation numbers.

So during a typical month on the list of my basic necessities is: bodywash/soap, shampoo, conditioner, razors, face wash, moisturizer, foundation, mascara, blush, eye shadow, lipstick, toothpaste, 'girlstuff', deoderant, contact lens solution and hair gel. Ok that is all I can think of at the moment.

Now the quantity of each item needed each month varies, obviously so for simplicity, let's say one of each. That brings us to 16 items. (Now I KNOW I have more than 16 in my vanity but let's just stay with that.)

Now money. Everyone buys different brands, quality etc. Some of these items could be $40 for a moisturizer and $50 for salon hair products, or $1.49 for deoderant at Walmart. Again, let's generalize and simplify and say that each item costs $4.

In a one month period, using the generalizations above, the personal grooming products would come to $64. Mine comes to more but then some last more than a month so let's stick with generalizations.

That's $64 a month to be clean and fresh, which would come to $768 for a year.

Insane isn't it?

I think many of us who haven't gone through and thought about things, wouldn't realize how quickly things add up.

While keeping track of every item and quantity and cost for all parts of my life would be far too many details to do and still function in life, it would be interesting to pick a random month and see what the real numbers show.