Inventory

Happy New Year!!


The end of another year and the beginning of a new one. I love New Years day.A time to wipe the slate clean, to set goals, a whole 365 days of opportunity!

There are the usual goals I have for the year: eat healthy, exercise more, sleep more, read, get organized, spend time with the important people in my life, calm my temper.... But there is one major resolution this year that will (hopefully) be the forefront of all my decision making and actions.

Buy less, do more!

As Stephen Wright said, "You can't have everything... where would you put it?" I have reached my wits end in acquiring,maintaining, organizing "stuff". 

Most of my resolutions fall under this statement, and I will make this my mantra. Mostly I hope to finally step off the consumer treadmill I have been on for the past few years. To disengage from media influence, to appreciate that which I have, to reclaim my time and place more value where value is due.

This is a big endeavor for me, so I have enlisted my husband to the cause. I dont expect to go as extreme as my influencing  Not Buying It: My Year Without Shopping author, Judith Levine. But I do hope to fall out of love with "stuff" and find my highs in places other than department stores. 


This post also serves as a forewarning to all our friends and family that this year we may not be purchasing gifts, but will be making, baking or forsaking gifts. Please feel free to do the same and join us in our crusade to reduce, reuse and recycle. Some ideas:

• Reuse food plastic containers
• Reuse plastic bags
• Buy second-hand
• Buy food in bulk and divide it yourself (using those small containers you have kept)
• Reduce food portions (especially in restaurants where most of it ends up in a bin anyway)
• Buy fair-trade products
• Boycott non-recyclable packaging
• Ask yourself if you really need this brand new product
• Don’t throw away: give it to friends or charity shops
• Use goods until they die

 Our rules are simple really; buy only needed items-food, household products and children's needs but nothing frivolous (which unfortunately for me includes new clothing which I foresee being the hardest element in this endeavor). Buy second-hand when possible, borrow, rent or make do. Not so difficult right? I truly believe that every single person has the ability to change the world!


Some interesting reading:

Paying the price

Time to address...

Consumption

Every man is rich or poor according to the proportion between his desires and his enjoyments.

-Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)

Love and moxie,

Kerry the Momster