My friend Brady decided to take the year 2015 to refrain from buying anything for himself. (He’s documenting it on his blog, Increasing Less.) When he told us about the plan last December, I kept thinking, it sounds so freeing! Right at the end of 2014 realized, hey, I could do that too.
A lot of factors make this the perfect year to do this. I’m feeling content with the things I have. I rarely have the chance to just go leisurely shop for myself. Some bad habits have gradually become a part of my routine and it’s a good chance to fix them, or at least take a year off from them. Trent and I both want to be good stewards of our resources and I think this will help shape the way we do that.
My only dark spot on this whole challenge is the thought of what my favorite fictional character, Becky Bloomwood, would think of me. But this is real life, so onward.
The Rules:
I’m not buying anything for myself in 2015, with some exceptions.
I can buy a bathing suit, because I do not have one that fits- thanks pregnancy! A bathing suit is necessary for my job- thanks pregnancy!
I can purchase up to 5 casual summer shirts, spending <$50., because I might actually only have one or two shirts to wear for regular summer days. Eight months of hot weather plus three kids will put some major wear and tear on a v-neck. I’ll just have to evaluate this when warmer weather gets here. I’m set for winter, because for Christmas my sister knit a sweater vest with a golden snitch for me.
Used books are excluded. I’m not doing this to be miserable.
Beauty products: Things I already use, like mascara, are fine. Buying nail polish at the grocery store because I’m having a bad day is out. No new nail polish for a year, because I have plenty, including a purple called Impulsive.
Household: No new dishes…AND I LOVE TO BUY DISHES! What I really mean is no more just buying things just because I happen to be in Marshalls. The exclusion here is that we have broken so many bowls that we’re almost to the point of not being able to eat soup as a family. We might need to get new bowls sometime, plus more spoons, which keep disappearing. My sister once saw Rush pull a handful of spoons out of his backpack at her house, which is one more clue in the disappearing spoon mystery.
Crafts: Supplies needed to finish existing projects (thread, quilting batting, etc) are okay, but overall I’m going to try to use what I have. My creativity is best served by looking around the house and making something with what I find. Since Trent and I have been married, I’ve always had a lot of room to store all my craft/sewing supplies, but the day when a child moves into the extra bedroom and kicks me out of it is on the horizon. I have to work through the fabric I have accumulated! So no more just buying a yard of fabric for the future. It shouldn’t hold me back because I have plenty of fabric right now. Plus there are projects to finish- Hawaiian quilt square, big quilt, cross stitch sampler, among others.
Food: This is the only one that affects the rest of the family, but ultimately for the better.
The background- Right around Holly’s first birthday, our grocery bill made a jump. We’re not buying different things, just more of it. Until recently we were eating out every Sunday after church, because paired with our Sunday night popcorn dinner, it was a day off from cooking and it’s fun. But taking two adults and two very small children to a restaurant is financially completely different than taking a family of five to a restaurant. It’s unsustainable.
So the food plan is that when it’s just our family, we’re eating at home, not fast food or at restaurants, and most Sunday lunches will now be at home. We can occasionally get pizza. I can only take the kids to a fast food place during the week if we are meeting friends there. We almost always have tortillas, cheese, and apples at home, so I can’t use no time or convenience as an excuse. Getting fast food is not easier than cheese roll-ups and apples for lunch. An exclusion to this is going to McDonalds to get ice cream and play during the summer, because they have an indoor playground and I can’t take three kids to the pool every day. Vacation is also excluded.
No more buying myself a Diet Dr. B every time I go grocery shopping. So far so good on this one, but I did foresee that this would be the hardest part of the whole challenge.
It’s a chance to change our habits for the better, cost reduction/good health/low waste. We were at Chick-fil-a last year and as I was throwing away our trash I noticed that their trash cans have “WASTE” stamped in huge letters across the top. I was like, yeah, that was a waste. Our lunch resulted in a huge pile of paper and styrofoam trash, it wasn’t even good for us, and probably cost about $47. There are too many things going on in our family right now to have waste weighing us down.
Recently in the car Tate was saying the official January kid sentence: “I wish it could be Christmas every day.” I responded with the official parent response: “It wouldn’t be special if it was every day.” But then I went on babbling. “We eat dinner as a family every night. Is that special every night?” As soon as the words left my mouth I realized that was a terrible example, because dinner is special every night. No matter what has happened during the day, we reset when we sit down together. It doesn’t matter if it’s a fancy candlelight dinner or broccoli cheese baked potatoes for the thousandth time, it is special, 365, every damn day.
My food mantra for 2015: It’s a joy to cook for my family.
Almost two weeks in to the challenge, and all is well. I have so far not purchased a $5 DVD or a pack of thank you notes with cats on them. I did not dig through the big basket of lipstick marked down to $3 at HEB this morning. When I couldn’t find warm pants to wear to church one Sunday, instead going to look for pants that afternoon or stressing about it, my mind was free to remember that it will be warm again in about six weeks and none of this will matter.
Being countercutural by not impulse buying at a suburban Target sounds substantially less exciting than the Haight-Ashbury Summer of Love experience, but it is what it is. Make love, not horcruxes.
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