I'm Not Buying It This Week - Day 1
Posted on January 07, 2007 by Her and tagged spending
This week, "I'm not buying it." This means I will not buy anything for a week. I started today and already it is a change. We went to Border's today and I just enjoyed looking at different books and not buying anything. We passed the annual sale at Victoria's Secret and I was temped to run in and stock up. For lunch, I thought several times about where I would like to buy lunch - until I remembered that I am Not Buying It. It is so easy to spend money recklessly!
Why am I Not Buying It? Ever since Christmas, I've been feeling a little consumerism bloat. Then this weekend we watched An Inconvenient Truth, the Al Gore movie about global warming. It got me thinking about reducing my impact on the environment. We also went grocery shopping and it was just all so exhausting - the shopping, the hauling stuff in, the moving stuff around to make room for new stuff. So I'm going to try something different this week and not buy anything.
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Isn't it interesting how much we buy that we don't need? I did this exercise a few weeks ago and found that 75% of what I normally buy is a total waste. In my case books, movies, and music just rattle the checking account. Ciao.
Sharon | Jan 8, 2007
A friend gave me a great book for my birthday, the most useful book I have ever read, called "Clutter's Last Stand." I forgot the author. I can't say enough good about this book. It's more than just getting rid of clutter, it is about how buying stuff, having stuff, having to take care of and move and clean stuff is sucking the life out of all of us. It's a call for all of us to stop being slaves to stuff, and that means slaves to buying stuff. It's really a good read. For example, he admonishes you not to buy boxes and bins to organize your stuff, because that just enslaves you even more to it. I almost never buy anything anymore that's not a necessity because of that book.
I don't think consumerism and consumption is the problem, instead we just have to be more selective about our purchases. There's a lot of crap we buy that we don't really need, once I realized this, I was able to cut back my spending to next to zero. Last month I spent about $700 on everything, including rent, utilities, food gas, and the like!
I love this idea. A few questions:
How do you handle necessities such as food? Do you drive a car? If so, how do you determine what is acceptable in terms of expenditures on gas?
Hee! I don't think I could go to the store without buying something :) It's definitely an interesting concept.
I just wonder, though, wouldn't just driving around and window shopping also contribute to global warming, in a way?
And? I know that Al Gore was all important in the internet thing, but when did he become the Last Word on everything?
:) Cool site! :)
Sarah | Jan 7, 2007
There's a group in San Francisco who made a compact for all of 2006, not to buy anything new. They have a blog too and call it "The Compact." Very interesting stuff. Thought you'd be interested. Link to SF Gate article about it below:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/02/13/BAGH3H7DH71.DTL
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