Buy Nothing Month: I Survived!

I've been meaning to gloat since April, when I did it for the first time.  Buy nothing I didn't need, that is.  But I'm finally sharing my personal triumph because of the Portland Tribune article today about buying only used stuff: Some simplify by saying bye to buying new.  Inspired by the book Not Buying It: My Year Without Shopping, this (very admirable) woman quit buying anything new.  Pretty cool, but the one MAJOR downside is that it takes time, a whole lotta time to find the good used stuff.  And what parent has time to browse...all over town?  Not this one. 

So... instead of buying used stuff, we tried to buy no stuff.  Eek.  Not my preferred approach to life, but one my spartan husband aspires to.  My husband had also been intrigued by the Buy Nothing authors.  When asked if I were game, it took, oh, two seconds to say: You gotta be kidding.  Me? 

Then, guiltily, I came back a few days later and offered up a month.  I mean, how long is 30 days anyway?  As the spender in our family, the power to reduce household consumption lay in my hands (though the state plans to take on that role soon enough...).  And, despite some serious front-end anxiety (what would I miss?), it actually wasn't so bad.  I mean, I could still buy stuff we needed (the real fun stuff: food, coffee, toilet paper), I just had to look the other way when I saw a great pair of shoes  -  the "want" stuff. 

After a not-so-painful and ultimately self-satisfying April (wow, a low credit card bill!), we agreed to make this a quarterly event (January, April, July & October), with a bit of splurging in between on my part, claro.  One could argue, as my brother did, that the whole thing is just about deferred gratification, not actually reducing consumption.  But I disagree, since with two kids under 5 in tow, am I really going to get back to Bridgeport Village to snag those shoes before 2009?  Nope.  I even passed up the chance to shop at Ikea before it opened.  Now that's strength.

Have you tried anything like this in your family?  With success?  What about the annual AdBusters Buy Nothing Day?  I'm thinking that when the kids are older it'll have more effect.  For now, just steering clear of stores with the little ones is a plus.  The less time they spend shopping and watching others shop, the better.

Comments

[hau]

Lisa: That is so inspiring! I think breaking it into bite size chunks makes it more realistic as well as achievable. It's kind of like the Low Car Diet. Because I didn't drive for the month, I resisted and didn't really have the means to buy stuff that I didn't need (driving to target). At first it seems so scary. Thanks for sharing the experience.

[olivia]

Lisa, your Buy Nothing Month is inspiring indeed. I would love to see if our family could do a Buy Nothing period, but that's something to work on down the line. Birthdays and holidays are always challenging. We don't want to be the party-poopers or the scrouges!

Limited consumerism and abundant conservation is healthy for our children! You're such a role model.

[KMat]

This is great! Having just moved here and not working yet, we are getting accustomed to living with out my part-time paycheck, which would pay for the fun stuff, like movies, lattes, and comic books. I can tell my husband (who is now in the habit of reading movie listings to me), that it's all part of the Buy Nothing movement, not just me enjoying staying home!

No really, though, it can be so tough not to buy. And I think once we can step back from our shopping habits, I think we are better able to decide what we really need in our lives. The social and environmental impacts of buying anything is something we often overlook in that emotional rush of consumerism. Being able to break out of that pattern, stop buying and hopefully, getting a chance to think about what you really want your money to support, is very cool.

When we moved here we made the decision to get rid of our 2 cars. The transition from 2 car household to public transportation (we also belong to a car-share service), wasn't as noticeable, I think, because it was part of the larger transition of our cross-country move. The are times when I miss having a car...trips to the grocery store, when the 4 mile bus ride takes 40 minutes and I know I could have driven there in 10, things like that. Which is great about the car-share, but we still try to limit our use of that as much as possible. But I think what it really comes down to is that we are happy and comfortable making this change, and we can feel good about it's impact it's had on other areas of our lives. (Thinking about not driving gets you thinking about walking, which gets you thinking about other ways to be healthier...the trickle down effect of doing a good deed...isn't a great feeling?)

[Chris]

I pledged to a buy-nothing-new year starting on my 40th birthday in May. My commitment is to buy nothing new for *me* and to keep my new purchases for the kids to a minimum. I buy most of their clothing used anyway and we've been having a major toy-purge here as well, so that part has been fairly easy for me. My husband hasn't participated in the venture, but he's not much of a shopper anyway.

So far, this has been going well. Life is definitely less stressful when I don't go shopping at Target with the kids! We are saving money. When I have really wanted something, I've found it on craigslist (including a basically new coffee table that someone had bought at IKEA since it opened here, then decided he couldn't take it with him back to Florida), which I find much more pleasant than shopping just about anywhere.

I've "slipped" twice...bought a set of glass spice jars, a cutting board, and a wine decanter at IKEA, and I bought a parenting book that the library doesn't carry. One thing that has helped take the edge off is treating myself to services like massages more often and also a newly instituted "Mom's Day Off." (One weekend day a month everyone else leaves the house or I go off by myself for a day of doing whatever I want, kid-free, except shopping). I thought I would miss yarn and fabric shopping, but instead I'm enjoying my stash. Also, putting books on hold at the library is nearly as convenient and satisfying as buying them at Powells, since I go to the library with the kids weekly anyway.

Something else I've enjoyed is little discoveries I've made while I "eschew the new," like washrags clean more effectively than sponges much of the time (and feel more hygienic than week-old sponges) and glass canning jars provide space efficient storage of leftovers. I've also let go of my attachment to many of my things and have made great progress in simplifying and getting our house better organized.

Try it...for a week, a month, a year...you too may find that there are many advantages to going without!