I have a couple of blogs I follow that are about buying less. One is about being frugal for financial reasons, and she's amazing. I have an immense amount of admiration for her ability to set a goal and stay the course. You can read her story of saving to buy a house here. Another is about being frugal for environmental reasons. Her goal is to create as little plastic waste as possible, a little like my no waste week only it is her whole life! Check out what she is able to do here.
So what is my purpose is setting a buy less goal? I don't have financial pressures to make me think twice, and I feel strongly about environment, but you can buy just as much needless organic recycled crap as toxic landfill fodder, so I need something more to motivate me. I figure public accountability might help. I find that it's just so easy to fill my shopping cart with things just because I like them, or the kids ask for them, or because they're an easy solution to something I could solve with just a little more effort. I want to put up a filter for those purchases. One that says things like, "Do you really need that bottle of wine? You have 3 others just like it at home. Wait, more soap? You haven't used the soap you got last time! And you can make it yourself for blinkin' sake. Mini rose plant? But you kill all plant life just by looking at it." If this filter had been in place the last week, some of these purchases might have been avoided.
Also, I do find it ironic that I run a craft center and yet I make very little of what I use in my life. Sure I buy the supplies to make things, but they rarely get used up. So the craft filter might go something like, "What!! More yarn! NO, absolutely not. NO MORE YARN. More fabric?? Are you crazy?? Put that down." So maybe rather than buying that beautiful Etsy candle (and I truly believe in supporting handmaking crafters) maybe I will use the candle mold and wax I have sitting in my garage (for the last year and a half I might add) to make my own.
I am not going to go rabid about this, I want to make an obvious but substainable change that I can maintain in the long run, so it's not a buy nothing policy, or a completely no waste goal, though i hope to see my garbage load go down. I just want to place some checks and balances on myself, especailly as for the last few months I've been in a stupid funk in which I justified buying everything I laid my eyes, because, you know, "I'm just so sad."
Time to snap out of it.
More soon, :)
