Buying nothing

I've been thinking on this quite a lot recently. My interest was first piqued by an article in the Observer magazine about an american couple who only bought essentials for a whole year. She has written a book about it - which I'm interested in reading, but feel that I should follow the philosophy and borrow rather than buy.

Which would be fine except I can't remember her name or the name of the book, lol.

So - some musings on not buying. Is this something that we could do as a family? It wouldn't mean being expenditure free - unfortunately there is a mortgage to pay, and food is needed. And the childrens feet grow. And because of all that DP will need to buy his train ticket to work, and the petrol to get the car there (and the insurance and servicing for said car - living 6 miles from the train station and no longer on a bus route (the bus company deleted the one to the station on the london line from this village) .... anyway there are lots of reasons why... oh - and no his working from home in this job isn't possible as his bosses have already said no :roll:


Right back on track... Is this something that a family could do? Is it something that we ought to plan for, lay in stores... maybe not, I'm pretty sure that *that* is *not* the idea :-)

Or is part of this actually stopping consumming? If we stop or cut down on our buying then we would definately cut our consumption. We'd probably drive less (or plan our journeys better). Magazines and newspapers would be the easiest things to go - after all the internet could replace that. Other paper goods - what would these be? Loo roll would be an easy one - swap in cloth wipes instead - and birthday cards could be replaced with the electronic version. Books could be borrowed from the library instead of bought. Well, sometimes anyway... Hmm but would probably need paper once in a while for the printer to replace the things that the children like to buy and colour, for worksheets and other educational stuff like that (yes, we're autonomous. But my children *choose* to do a workbook once in a while. DD1 tells me that a workbook is a good way of consolidating some information in a quick space of time, and makes written things less scary to do - she gets a sort of freeze in front of a blank piece of paper, oh I *know* that feeling :roll:)

OK so I've done for magazines, newspapers, some books, maybe loo roll, and birthday cards and workbooks (albeit with some printing from the pc instead). Planning what driving can't be avoided so that we do any shopping around it - well I do that anyway because the reduced price goods in the shops are put out around the time that DPs train comes in so we stop off on the way back from fetching him :-) Clothes. That is definately somewhere that we can cut down. We probably have enough of everything to do us for ages - DD2 can have hand me downs from DD1, DS some from DD2. DD1 has enough to last her for a while yet, even with growing. And I think that my mum still has some things that were mine in the next size up that DD1 can have when she grows a bit more. And clothing is something that can be found in charity shops and on freecycle and similar anyway :-) Shoes are going to be more of an issue - are DP and I allowed to resole things? Hmm will have to buy DP a good pair of shoes before all this starts then as he tends to wear through the top before the sole. The children are going to be more of an issue as they tend to, um, grow. But I can certainly resolve to buy as carefully as possible for them all.

So the stumbling block in all this is going to be the business. In many ways it is a seperate entity - and in many ways is helping those who buy the nappy side of things actually buy *less* and certainly *consume* less than they would using a disp. nappy instead. And it provides me with some income, albeit fairly small. I have an increasing number of clients who are looking towards EC (elimination communication) - so we can put some resources about that up and get people to look at how they can further reduce their consumpsion, but in many ways I need to keep buying for the business to continue to trade. I'd have to watch that I wasn't replacing my personal buying with buying for the company (oh - vicarious shopping, lol) so that I didn't end the year with a lot of unsold stock; because that would be a waste in its own way as well. But on the plus side this autumn will see the nappy company relaunching with a stronger eco bent as we are moving to selling the more 'eco' end pretty much exclusively (exceptions being for british made nappies and WAHM things as they are much more eco simply by their lack of air miles). And we are planning to launch another co that will concentrate on beautiful and useful things (toys and educational)... but that could wait. So we would be cutting spending there certainly. Hmmm - further thinking on this is required methinks :-)

Food - well as I mentioned before we already arrange our food shopping around other things. And as a household we buy very little that is made for us - so much more fun to bake your own bread, cut your own vegetables. Where we could definately improve our buying would be in growing more of our own stuff. At this we failed miserably this summer - not having any under cover space meant that the worst of the sun hit our containers just as they were starting to grow. In the course of a couple of days the weather destroyed most of our tomato plants, all of our courgette and DS tipped out all the carrot seedlings and smooshed the kale beyond repair ... Our dustbin is currently dying though so I'm going to poke a hole in the bottom, fill it with earth and compost and stuff and get in some potatoes which will, hopefully, be ready for christmas. We're stuck using containers atm because the house is on the market. Hmmm more thinking on this aspect as well.

Memberships - are these allowable expenses for the year? We currently belong to English Heritage, the National Trust and Garden Organic. These memberships mean that we pay no extra to go to any properties that belong to them or have had grants under their schemes. We go somewhere most weeks, particularly over the season, and get a lot of learning out of them. We will have to get better at taking a flask/drinks/snacks with us. And the petrol involved can be a signifignant expense and point of consumpsion again.


So that leads me to the final sticking point in all this. DP. He goes to work each day, is expected to look a certain way, and has to live within an office culture where going out for lunch is something he and his collegues do as much for sanity as for sustanence. And he is hardly profligate in that respect (he's very good at getting invited out for drinks and things by companies that want their business so doesn't spend there). But he does like his magazines, and his chocolate, and his camera accessories (he is starting to do more and more pro-work photographically - so maybe those can be justified in those terms). But he is also often talking about saving money, about there being more month than money. About the need to control our spending. hmmm - I think he is better at this last bit than he used to be. But the phrase there is 'think' as I don't know.

And so endeth the mega-post. I'd love some thoughts on all this. We've pretty much always participated in things like Buy Nothing Day, are concerned about Fair Trade/Jubilee/Drop the Debt and have been involved in theri campaigns. Public transport has a huge part in our lives - so the car thing is offset in some ways, just a pity that it is a requirement for DPs commute to the station to commute. Hey - we have a compost heap!! And we don't have a company car!! We're doing some things OK already... should I just shush and be happy with how we've done?