Buy Nothing Month: Round IV

Yes, I'm still at it!  And only this month, the fourth buy nothing month at our house, did it finally hit me, that this is not just about a low(er) credit card bill or avoiding a few purchases that I won't get back to.  Though those are worthy goals, in my mind!  It's about how I spend my time.  Continually seeking stuff (my 2-year old daughter can very clearly enunciate the word "errands") or doing great things? 

It really hit me last Friday when I was running (OK, jogging) along waterfront park with my daughter: my plan to hit NW 23rd for living room lamps after my run was not OK.  I had somehow wormed my way into thinking it might be because I had relocated the existing living room lamps to our bedroom and so we had none!  The living room was dark!  Good reason for new lamps, right?  I had convinced myself that I could just go ahead and buy them now 'cause why gloat over what's really just a delayed purchase? 

But right there, under the Hawthorne Bridge, I saw a new purpose in all this besides saving money and accumulating less environmentally unfriendly junk: doing and being instead of buying.  Why it took me 90+ days of consciously buying nothing to realize this, I'll never know.  Some people debate whether to do or to be; both are fine with me.  It's the 'to buy' I'm trying to recover from! Not so easy in this US of A where buying IS doing.

So I will work on consciously redirecting the way I spend my time - especially my precious Fridays off work with my 2-year old, a gift indeed.  Why schlep her to three stores for this & that when we could play kitchen at home, read books, or plop 100 smiley-face stickers onto a piece of paper.  Or, better yet, nap together!!  Maybe this new reason isn't the 'real' reason to buy nothing for a month, as I was thinking on Friday.  Maybe, like most things we do for any length of time, our purpose will evolve.  Sometimes we'll feel like protesting consumerism, sometimes we'll need to save money, and sometimes we'll need to just be.  For this buy nothing month, it's the latter.  We're going to focus on just being and doing.  Because frankly, buying unneeded stuff can take up a lot of valuable time (that I complain about not having!!). 

Comments

[andrea]

Such good ruminations! My husband often points out that I can justify shopping as long as it's things the kids need...or more often things that I have rationalized that they need. Like you, if I looked at my list of things to do, which generally feels overwhelming, half of it is to buy things that we could do without. Do I really need to buy next year's winter coats for the kids just because they are on sale now? Does my neighbor really care if I bring a present to her daughter's birthday party this weekend? Probably not.

[Sarah Carlin Ames]

Rumor has it the letters to the editor are one of the most-read parts of the entire paper. I've midwifed many LTEs in my day -- helping other folks craft their thoughts -- and Lisa's right. If you stick to 150 words, they don't take out the carving knives. . . . Actually, the shorter and pithier the better. Tight and to the point gets published a lot more than long-winded.

Go for it! It's fun to see your name in print (and they'll print hundreds of thousands of copies). And it might spur more activistas out there.

Sarah