8 Skincare Products I Use Daily And Highly Recommend

Photo: Adobe

Through experience, you inevitably learn about skin care products like which ingredients really work, and which knockoffs, identical to their more costly name-brand counterparts, to buy.

Here's what I now use every day in my skincare routine, as well as, for my senior mother whose skin still feels baby soft. I like to pamper her with mild, good clean ingredients to keep her skin healthy and moisturized. I've reviewed the following beauty items in prior blogs, so if you wish to know why they're good for your skin click on their links for a description and list of ingredients. Today's blog will try to save you a few bucks when purchasing them:

8 Skincare Products I Use Daily And Highly Recommend:

 

1) SheaMoisture Soap(s) - to wash with during a shower. T.J. Maxx often carries the bars at $3.99/bar.

2) Noxema Cleansing Cream - to wash my face before bed. I also use it to soothe my mom's dry skin where she needs it, such as her arms. Alternatively, I love the face washes from CeraVe and Cetaphil, as well as, their Walmart Equate knockoffs. Walmart also has a Noxema dupe only for in-store pickup. However, Noxema, the name brand, usually selling at under $5, is cheap enough.

3) Coconut Oil - I buy food-grade coconut oil often from Puritan's Pride, to use as after-bath oil to lock in moisture. The reason for the food-grade coconut oil is to simplify my life and not have to buy 2 different coconut oils. {The same applies to white vinegar for cleaning my home. I buy food-grade, not cleaning-grade white vinegar which lies in the cleaning products aisle of supermarkets. When cheap enough, reduce to one multi-tasking product you have to stock. Saves time! Looks like Puritan's Pride no longer sells what I use, so here's another good online retailer. Costs: $6 - $10 for 16 oz.

If I need extra moisturizers in the fall and winter to slatter on dry skin, I add the following to my skincare routine --

4) Equate Moisturizing Cream (a dupe for CeraVe) - Cost: $10

5) Equate Beauty Gentle Skin Cream with Long-Lasting Moisture (the dupe for Cetaphil). - Cost: $6.40. Cetaphil is a tad thicker than CeraVe. Both knockoffs are excellent, plus they work wonders in moisturizing your face, so mild, light, and absorbent that you can skip buying a separate face moisturizer.

6) Target's Up and Up or Walmart's Equate Baby Powder - We use it after bathing and I often apply a sprinkle with a makeup brush to my face to prevent a shiny complexion. Real face powder has a finer texture, than the cornstarch ingredient in baby powder, but baby powder with cornstarch is still a super substitute. Talic (a finer grain) in body power has been removed in the USA. Price: $2.99 for 22 ounces.

7) Daytime: I use Equate Beauty All Day Moisturizing Sunscreen Lotion for Skin, Broad Spectrum SPF 15. (the dupe for Olay Complete Daily Moisturizer for Sensitive Skin, SPF 15). I'll use whatever I can get, for normal or sensitive skin. You'll pay about $4

8) Nighttime: I apply Neutrogena Rapid Wrinkle Repair - I use the cream formula but have also tried the serum. If only buying one of these, get the cream. Cost: $16 at T.J. Maxx or $13 - $16 on eBay. $25 regular retail price.

By learning what's in skincare products, and focusing on key effective ingredients supported by science, you can find knockoffs for less. Look in health food stores, small batch-start-up companies, and drugstores that offer both name brands that go on sale, as well as, drugstore dupes to lower the costs of your everyday skincare. Toss in Equate (from Walmart) and Up and Up (Target's store brand).

We're talking about effective, clean, high-caliber skincare for less. Skincare without compromise you can afford to use 365 days of the year without going broke! You are welcome.

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Equate Walmart's Private Store Brand For Savings

The cost of skincare -- from cleansers to moisturizers to treatments and sunscreens -- can really add up! You save a ton of money by finding store house brands, which are nearly identical to the national brands we love. So low priced they are worth taking a risk to try them out.

Equate, Walmart's private store brand, has mirrowed many beauty remedies selling for half the price or less of their name brand counterparts. CVS has it's own version of Neutrogena's Rapid Wrinkle Repair, but I couldn't find an Equate equivalent, so readers if it exists, please let me know as Equate tends to cost less than the house brands of CVS, Walgreens or Target. Yet CVS, Walgreens and Target house brands are welcome fallbacks, giving us more choices. House brands go on sale too.

Posted are several awesome knockoffs for much less moola:

Compare the above to Olay: Regenerist; Moisturizing Lotion for Sensitive Skin with SPF 15 (also available in SPF 30); and Night of Olay Firming Cream.

Compare to Neutrogena: Oil-Free Facial Moistururer; Rapid Wrinkle Repair Cream; and Rapid Wrinkle Repair Lotion. (Beauty 360 is CVS' house brand.)

Compare to L'Oreal Collagen Moisture Filler; ROC Retinol Correxion Deep Wrinkle Serum; and Neutrogena Triple Age Repair.    

Compare to L'Oreal Revitalift Anti-Wrinkle + Firming Eye Cream; Olay Total Effects 7 in 1 Anti-Aging Daily Moisturizer; and Olay Eye Lifting For Firming Skin Serum.

Compare to Cetaphil Moisture Cream; CeraVe Moisture Cream; and Aquaphor Healing Ointment.

The knockoffs are so numerous I've only posted some of the available skin creams and treatments, and I didn't list the cleansing creams or toners. Ok, I'll list one cleansing cream below:

Frequently there's little to no difference between the name and store house brands, yet the savings are great. Finding and using the latter is an easy way to beat inflation or live on a budget without compromise! Paying much less counts when using products daily! I've linked you up to Walmart and CVS -- where I've pulled all these dupes -- so you can start comparing prices. You're welcome!

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Athletic Works Socks With Cushion Arch Support

Sometimes it's the mundane inexpensive finds in life that can please or even thrill us. Like socks! Most of us wear socks nearly every day and I like to keep a drawer full of them so I rarely have to do laundry because I'm out of socks. It's also a clothing item I wish to mindlessly machine wash and dry with abandon as I have no desire to baby a pair of socks. So I took a chance on a 10-pack of socks by Athletic Works at Walmart and I really like them! Why spend more when these do everything we need them to do?

The benefits include cushion arch support built into the socks. Although I'm often partial to cotton, 100% cotton socks are not necessarily the best fabric for potentially sweaty feet. These have 87% polyester, 11% cotton, and 1% lycra spandex and are made to wick moisture away from our feet. Ok, great!

What first attracted me to Athletic Works socks was the innovative, compact packet, and what sold me was the arch support. When traveling just toss the packet of socks neatly into a suitcase, then pull them out one pair at a time much like pulling out tissues from a Kleenex box after you reach your destination.

The socks come in an assortment of lengths from no-show, or ankle to crew, or tube; as well as, for men, women, and children; and in enough neutral shades to match your wardrobe.

Don't let the unbeatable value fool you! You get 10 - 12 pairs of socks cheap depending on the style selected. The socks are soft, cozy, and do indeed keep your feet dry. After wearing them for months, I decided to buy some for my senior mother also. She can benefit from arch support too. Have you been paying too much for socks?

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The SAVVY SHOPPER CREED: 5 Skip/Buy Rules

Smart Ways To Put Money In Your Piggy Bank

Photo: Freepik

A purchase that makes a person happy is money well spent. That said, there are certain things I skip in order to achieve bigger goals, such as to have an emergency fund, or buy a higher ticket item. In New York City I am sometimes surprised when people who are low on cash think nothing of dropping the few dollars they do have on temporary things like $2 bottled water, or $5 frappucchinos. If you apply yourself you can drink water and coffee for free! At the risk of outing myself as parsimonious, below are costs I shy away from ...

5 Smart Ways To Put More Money In Your Piggy Bank:

1) Subway and bus fares - Savings: $5.50 a round trip - Walk if possible instead of paying for subways and buses. It's fantastic exercise! Other than for safety (late at night), distance (a trip to Brooklyn or Queens) or time (I'm running late) I walk everywhere.

2) Manicures and pedicures - Savings: $30 - $60 depending on the salon. Multiply by number of times per year!

photo; istock

While homeless after my building's fire, I tipped my hotel maid $40 one day. She was lovely and a diligent worker, a single mother who told me she lived at home with 8 people, including her two young boys aged 10 and 8 years old. At the time she said the following Saturday was her birthday, and she would spend her tip on a manicure. Indeed, it was her birthday, as well as, her money to do whatever she liked, but every person is different, and I tend to spend even windfalls on articles that last. In general, I say a woman in her 20s should experience a couple of manis and pedis; then stop going to the salon and trim and polish her own nails. Put the savings in a jar to see how it adds up! One day the sum will pay for something pricey ... a necessity, keepsake-luxury or vacation!

3) Coat checks - Savings: $5 to $10 - Whenever possible I simply hold onto my coat. Short of carrying it on stage to make a speech, nobody will notice if you keep your coat discreetly at your table. Middle class, bourgeois that I am ... I'd rather the $10 stay in my wallet to go for something I value.

4) Bottled water - Savings: $1 to $2 per bottle - Carry your own water from home and look for drinking fountains. In a pinch after washing your hands in a public bathroom, cup your hands to drink the running water from the tap. It's the same exact water that runs in the kitchen. Bonus: Save the environment by ditching the plastic.

5) Forgo coffee stops close to home - Savings: $3 - $7 - When I'm all alone, readers, I'm too cheap to buy a cup of coffee while out in my own neighborhood. With a friend I consider the expense of a neighborhood coffee shop inexpensive entertainment. However, me, myself and I will just have to make coffee for me, myself and I at home. On the other hand, if I'm in a neighborhood far away from home I will stop for coffee -- it then becomes an opportunity that only costs a few bucks to sit down; people watch; and take in the local color. Do my coffee-spending-choices make sense to anybody else?🐖🐷🐽

And, it goes without saying: Take advantage of any and all free samples of coffee sent by the Coffee gods (i.e. displays set up to promote products) while you are out shopping.

Where else to save: 

1) Ask yourself if you benefit from costly cable TV, or is free broadcast television combined with the internet and reading books enough to entertain you?

2) Examine your telephone habits: Do you need both a cell and home phone, or can you cut one? Then look at your telephone plan to see if you have the right cost efficient plan for you.

Spending more doesn't always give you a better quality of life. But mindful spending on things that matter usually does. As does living debt-free and freedom from work just to pay bills. What gives your life meaning? Figure it out and happiness will follow.


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Should You Give Money As A Gift?

Photo: LiveAsAMom

Is it ever okay to give cold hard cash as a gift? Heck, yeah!! These are hard times for many people. The average person lives on a budget and can certainly use it. Cash is a much better gift when you truly don't know a person's tastes or needs. 

Why give a family member some useless item that will only take up space until it is donated to charity or regifted? (If you're a regifter be honest.)

I think the closer the relationship, the more appropriate it is to give cash. If you are distant, perhaps a gift certificate to a desirable retailer is less awkward. (Tips for service are another matter.)

If friends have a special need (like mounting bills due to illness), consider being their secret Santa, if you can afford it. That could avoid any embarrassment. 

Grandparents often give cash to their grandchildren, and I think it opens up an opportunity to teach kids a few lessons in money management. Have you noticed how much harder it is for kids to part with their own money then it is when you buy stuff for them? It's not uncommon for a child to be more deliberate when spending his own money. Having to consider a budget is good training for later in life. 

Toys and gadgets run on batteries, so I like to get them to think about those as part of the expense too. Batteries don't grow on trees either. Somebody has to buy them. As a rule of thumb, try not to add money to the Christmas, Hanukah or birthday sum, so a child can buy a more expensive gift; but if you must, cave on the batteries. You don't want your kid to end up in tears. Keep the lesson fun. 

If you're giving cash, you can still take the time to present it cleverly, if you wish. A money box with festive ribbons and bows is a darling idea. Be creative ... without damaging the money.

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