I am often embarrassed that I am a willing participate in the insatiable American Consumerism. In theory I'm against it but in practice I'm just as bad as the other guy. "Pleather boots made in Thailand?... Goody!" Anyhow, I've been toying with an idea for a long time and decided with the move that I would finally put it into play. For the next year, neither I nor my family will buy anything new - except food/toiletries/medicine. That is including but not limited to clothing, housewares, books, art, furniture, and hopefully even stuff like paint/building materials. We'll reuse what we've got, find it at a thrift store, or search the local salvage yards. Today was the first day and we went to our local thrift store and got ourselves some books and clothes. It was actually really exciting too.
Now, you could argue that we are still consuming, and you'd be right, but when we buy used goods we aren't requiring the system to produce - we are recycling what would have otherwise ended up in a land fill. And I'm not going to just stop buying and wait a year to get the things I want so that we go on some crazy spending spree in 366 days. I'm going to get creative, dig deep, and work hard to make it work.
Which will be hard because our house needs a lot of things done to it. It needs flooring - but I've heard of people putting in old wood floors from gyms. It needs paint, art, furniture, etc. And when we do find things and make it work I'll let you know how. Anyhow.... I'm soo excited!
