What can you buy with $20 and an hour?

Thrifting through a plethora of fabrics, scanning Sephora’s neat rows of makeup products or even gazing down an aisle of snacks at Safeway — I love it all. So when my Lifestyles Editors  challenged me to buy whatever I wanted with $20 within an hour, I laughed and thought to myself, “This will be easy.”

Turns out, the task was simply easier said than done.

With a crisp $20 bill snatched between my fingertips, I envisioned all the items I could purchase — which amounted to barely anything.

Usually, I would save my money for months and then spend it all at once on a whole day of shopping at the mall. Now that I only had $20 and an hour, I felt comparably limited.

Nevertheless, I walked into CVS with an open mind. New spring makeup launches had arrived at the drugstore, and I was curious to test them out. I made a beeline towards the NYX makeup display.

After staring at the shelf for what seemed like an hour, I plucked out a NYX Lip Lingerie Liquid Lipstick in the shade Push Up.

I first ruled out the brown lipsticks, since brown did not match any of my clothes. However, I couldn’t decide between the similar muted pink shades of Lace Detail and Push Up. Because there was no logical way to decide, I used the childhood method of eenie-meenie-miney-mo to decide which color I should buy.

My finger landed on Push Up. I liked its dusty rose color and was also interested in trying liquid lipsticks, as they were newer products on the market. I turned the transparent tube over to check the price; it was $6.99. Breathing a sigh of relief, I clasped it in my palm and side stepped to the Milani display.

A peachy pink blush caught my eye immediately. I picked up the Milani Baked Blush in Luminoso mindlessly. Because it was $9.29, I had around $3 left, which I saved to pay for tax.

Although I did not get to spend a lot of money on my shopping spree, I almost felt relieved. Shopping with $20 was stressful because of its limits, but it also felt like a breath of fresh air compared to my day-long shopping sprees. Despite my habit of continuously splurging, I exited CVS with satisfaction, two new beauty products and that good things could come in small packages – two small items could make my day as much as bags overflowing with clothes.