Winter warming recipes

I sent this assortment in an e-mail earlier to Robin, but some of the recipes looked SOOOOO good, I had to post them. I think 101cookbooks might be my new favourite site!

Really easy (still roasted) side dish is potatoes--whole or cut, par-boiled if you want them to cook faster, then sprinkled with oil, salt, pepper, and rosemary. Then bake. OR smashed potatoes. You cook the potatoes whole in boiling water, then smash them a bit so they have a big squished centre and sprinkle oil, salt and pepper directly onto the tops.

Here are some other SEASONAL recipes (I'm determined to get you to stop using red peppers during the winter!!!)

http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/001546.html - Butternut squash tart. It looks AMAZING.
http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/farro-and-roasted-butternut-squash-recipe.html - You can use barley instead of farro. Watch out, because they cook for a while, but this also looks GREAT
I LOVE ravioli. http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/hazelnut-chard-ravioli-salad-recipe.html, plus butternut squash + nuts equals AMAZING

Lentil shepherd's pie. http://www.vegsoc.org/cordonvert/recipes/season2.html I've heard good things about shepherd's pie, but Crocker School's cafeteria ladies ruined it for me. I should probably give it another chance. PLUS, if I don't like the sound of mashed potatoes I could have mashed swede (rutabaga), mashed parsnips, or biscuits on top.

A decent vegetarian roast is hard to come by.... Hopefully this one is good. . . it looks amazing--there's a SAUCE. How cool is that? http://www.vegsoc.org/cordonvert/recipes/season4.html


This isn't seasonal, but MAN does it look good-- I think I've found my new favourite website, by the way! http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/001490.html

Challenges, challenges, and MORE challenges

Okay. I’ve taken £80 out from the ATM to try to see how I do on my original £74.65
AND I’m in the middle of an avoid supermarket month.
AND I’m still doing Buy Nothing New month (but I keep forgetting to cancel freaking eMusic!!)
AND I signed up for Crunchy Chicken’s No Food Waste challenge, which is turning out to be REALLY easy (YAY for tiny fridges!! . . . That is probably the first and last time I will ever say that.)
AND I’m now thinking about this whole £2/day diet challenge.
Maybe I’m a little bit crazy. Or, maybe these things all run really well into each other.

I’m excited most about the £2/day challenge. Maybe because it’s new…. Or maybe because it’s a bit more of a challenge (to my day-to-day life, anyway) than the others. Although avoiding supermarkets has been a bit of a pain, Mac has been bearing the brunt of the purchasing (for which I am VERY grateful).

As soon as I get a freaking battery for our scale, I can start calculating how much we’re using of everything, and how much it all costs. I probably need to have it for tomorrow (AUGH!) because I figure the best way to measure the cost of the Riverford veg is to weigh each item, and determine its cost compared to its cost if you buy it individually. The other option is to spread the £10.40 over the week, and just automatically count 75p into the total every day. Thoughts?

Sarah (my American coworker) thinks it will be a lot of work, but I think we’ll get the hang of it fairly soon. Plus, once you’ve determined how much a cup of oatmeal costs or a slice of bread, you can then use that again and again. I estimate about 20 min per day to determine it…. Plus maybe another 15 to blog about it! I also want to take pictures of things to document it—I figure if we have this food conference (MY FIRST EVER GRANT PROPOSAL—I’M SUPER EXCITED!!!) then it would be nice to show people that you CAN eat well on a limited budget. Yes, I need to acknowledge that I’ve been able to have the money up front to buy the items in our cabinet/fridge, but I think that would be possible if you’re willing to live on rice/beans and porridge for a couple days to build up some cash. Plus, how many people out there (who are in housing—I’m not counting the homeless) who are really limited to £2 a day in the UK? Surely being on benefits or child support or whatever gives you more in allowance. And a minimum wage job – rent, bills, etc. should still give you more than £14 a week. Even if you have kids, I’m sure it’s manageable. I wish I had some friends who have young ‘uns who would be willing to try this.

OOOOOH! We’re hoping to get an allotment! Well, me, Heather, Jonathan, Chris and Natalie are all hoping. Mac is feigning disinterest, but I don’t believe him for a second. At the moment he’s insisting that until I prove to him that I will actually work on it regularly for 6 months, he’s not having anything to do with it. But with five other people pulling their weight, helping to buy things (AUGH! Buy nothing new dilemma!!) and getting the initial hard clearing of the soil done, I bet he’ll crack in no time. There are only a few half plots available—two. TWO half plots, and they are awfully tiny. There are a few more 10 rod plots (7 ft x a LOT—sorry, I can’t do the math) and then a couple 14 rod. I would ideally like a half plot to start with, even if there are 6 of us, BUT 10 might be doable… Especially since the half plots are really 1/3 plots.
I’ve also had about a million meetings lately, which is a great way to not spend money, and a real obstacle to blogging. I barely touch my computer at home now unless it’s to check e-mails of the various groups I belong to. Productivity, ahoy!

Weekly update (NOT the SNL kind, though)

Robin keeps bugging me that I haven’t updated my blog in a while, which I suppose is true (only when compared to her, though. . . . I just found the blog of my friend Jonathan who hasn’t updated it in 11 months


So what have I been doing since last Thursday?




I have started a bath mat that I might take apart and restart (I’ve already taken it apart once). It’s made out of donated T-shirts, so it hasn’t cost me anything. The cutting of the T-shirts was done mostly in a very gradual spiral like this:


Here's a tutorial, but not exactly how I've done it here:

Anyway, I like it, but I'm not sure of the colours so far... I have purple and black. I'm wondering if I should take it apart and look for some more colours to make it look more like this:







I then ran out of purple and black T-shirts and hadn’t decided whether to keep going or take it apart, so I then started on making myself a portable knitting needle case. I wanted something somewhat classy, so I went with this pattern, which is more of a clutch than a roll.

Eventually I also want to make something similar to this, but a LOT nicer looking. I’m thinking retro fabric? Maybe a “Make do and mend” writing going down it? Any thoughts? Again, all this would be made by either a) fabric I already have b) used material I can find in charity shops or c) something donated.

I would LOVE to make a kitchen organiser made out of old dishtowels. It hangs on a hanger, and has pockets sewn in. (Robin, please tell me you saved that article… where did I find it???)

I’ll have to sort through these lists (one per month!!) to see if there are other things I’d like to do! http://tipnut.com/20-neat-o-projects/

What have I done that is NOT craft related?

We had a soup night, and I made minestrone—I’d put up the recipe, but I kinda made it up (it was pretty good) and Oli made DELICIOUS tomato/herb/pepper bread. The bread was wonderful, but there was FAR too little of it. I want more.

I made crappy baklava—I didn’t have enough filo sheets, AND I decided to use honey instead of sugar, so the syrup didn’t re-solidify. D’oh! I’ve learned my lesson and will use sugar next time. And less lemon juice—it was VERY lemony.

I went to a gig at the Hamptons (£3 entry, but it’s a fundraiser) put on by my friend who is an illustration student and saw some bands (I was also told I looked like a hot 12 year old. NOT impressed).

I sat at the Women’s Environmental Network stall at the Totton Go Green Fair on Saturday, learned from a woman how to make a wormery without it costing a fortune (awesome! . . . Although I’d need a bin, a tap, and some worms…. I don’t think I can get ANY of those used….), and got some people to sign up for our group. It wasn’t the busiest fair, but it was a great start for us at WEN—it was our first ever stall, so I’m glad we were able to get used to it.

I went and worked on an allotment (not ours) on Sunday for 3 hours and got really excited about allotments. I’m not sure how it would work with my buy nothing new challenge… if I want wooden frames? Mesh? Manure? Straw? What if I can’t get it used? Grrrr….. I know it’s surrounding the issue of food, but it’s also a hobby. This is a difficult one. Maybe I’ll just break the rules. . . . . AUGH. Of course, this would require us to actually go ahead and get an allotment. Heather and Jonathan (Heather was with me at the WEN stall, Jonathan was digging away with us on Sunday) were excited about the idea of having an allotment with us. If we could get two more people on board, I think it would be fairly easy. We’d go for a half plot (5 rods—125 sq meters) so that we weren’t too crazy.

I went to a Fair Trade Southampton meeting, sent a BUNCH of non-profit-related e-mails, and have more left to do.

I also became slightly addicted last week to apple muffins and coffee & walnut cake at The Art House. I think I was using it as a chance to spend money because it was an “experience”. That doesn’t mean I should buy cake everytime I go in there.

Mac and I have watched 2/3 of The Corporation, a documentary about corporations…. It makes the argument that they should be labelled as “psychopathic”. I think that’s a little ridiculous, and would settle for executives being held responsible for corporate actions. “Limited liability” my foot.

Yesterday I spent nearly £6 on brazil nuts and apricots in an attempt to buy “groceries” instead of snack foods. The result is that I bought a large quantity of expensive snacks that may get used in a recipe, but will more likely be used as snacks…. Or sit around for ages until they go bad and I have to throw them out.

So as for spending money, I spent:
- A couple pounds (£2? £4?) at the Go Green Fair so that I could eat lunch. (I still owe the Art House)
- Quite a bit of money over the past week at The Art House because of my cake addiction
- £3 at Hamptons (I didn’t have a drink all night)
- £6 on non-snack food snack foods.
And I think that’s it….

I hope that’s a sufficiently long summary of what I’ve been doing.

Please feel to comment about the rug (which I’d like to sell at the Art House, part of which would be donated to SCRATCH or a domestic violence refuge group), knitting cases (which I’d also like to sell at the Art House as long as they look pretty enough), the allotment, whether snack foods count as buying “something”, and how I’d make a wormery without buying something new.

In which our heroine explores her food options and convinces her boss to try the £2/day experiment.

Turns out there IS an organic milk option in glass bottles from the local dairy. I wonder if they’d let me only get 1 bottle a week…. I don’t think I’d drink any more than that…. Unless I start turning it into organic yogurt! Then I could get it more often…. And it would be cheaper (yogurt it way more expensive than milk) I found a recipe a while ago that looked easy, but I can’t find it. This looks about the same. NO, I am not planning to have babies. But it said “yogurt” and “easy” so I thought that would be a good site.

We did make homemade tortillas, which were SUPER cheap to make (mostly flour, with water, some Crisco, salt, baking powder,) and the tempeh fajitas were AMAZING. I heart soy sauce and lime juice mixed together. (This reminds me a little bit of my favourite way to make Portobello mushrooms—in a marinade of wine, olive oil, soy sauce, and balsamic vinegar….delicious) Tempeh is awfully expensive, so it wouldn’t make the cut in a £2/day diet—it was £3.50 or something ridiculous for enough for two of us. That might still be cheaper than free range organic meat, though.

I’ve been thinking about food a lot recently, partly because of this Transition Southampton group (I am desperate for a Southampton farmers’ market that rivals Winchester’s in size), and because I’ve been reading Animal, Vegetable Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver (check out the recipes and seasonal meal plans!!!). I LOVE it. I’m at the last chapter, but there are so many parts that I want to go back and reread. Her husband inserts fact boxes about conventional food production, which routinely made me want to cry.

I managed to interest my boss both in the Buy Nothing New challenge (he said he would try a month) and the £2/day diet (based on the $1 a day diet I posted about earlier). He wants to try the £2/day diet in February. The problem is, he eats CRAP. With a £2 limit per day, he’s going to eat even MORE crap. He was considering the challenge saying, “well, a tin of chicken curry is only 27p, so I’ll be fine” and “Well, you can get a whole chicken for £2.50, and that will last a couple days, and then I can make soup”. I told him that he shouldn’t be BUYING chickens that only cost £2.50, and he said he knows all about the conditions but it doesn’t affect his purchasing decisions. Helloooooo cognitive dissonance! I might try to plan meals with him and try to get him to eat better that month, in addition to staying within £2. The alternative is that we both take pictures of every meal to accompany our challenge—maybe THAT will convince him that I’m eating better.

I’m doing pretty well on my BNN challenge….but I think part of that is from default. I walked into town once to go to the bank. I had the urge to go into Starbucks and buy a chai latte, but didn’t. I saw cute clothes, but not much else. Maybe I should be forced to walk through a busy shopping centre once a week to make sure I can still keep my challenge. If I don’t have the opportunity to buy stuff, then where’s the challenge?

Oh. I just remembered I bought colour printer cartridges the other day. I’m chalking that up to “essentials”, because I can’t print in black & white unless my printer recognises that there are colour cartridges in there…. Stupid printer. (It also has un-recyclable cartridges. Bleh) I really need to be able to print for all the volunteer stuff. . . . so it doesn’t count.

I’m making minestrone soup tonight for a soup night, and I’m happy to say that I don’t think I’ll need to go to the supermarket at all for it. Most of the ingredients are from either the food coop or our vegetable box. Mac’s going to check some local shops near his work for cans of tomatoes and some small shell pasta. Not bad, eh? I need to get in touch with that dairy soon—we’re almost out of milk, and the last yogurt we bought (from World Food) was NOT organic. . . .

No supermarkets too?

Right, so my WEN (Women's Environmental Network) group has taken on this month's challenge of avoiding supermarkets as much as we can.

I'm going to call and see if we can get a milk delivery (or if the Art House can get a milk delivery, maybe I can buy the occasional bottle off of them?) Unfortunately, although they have an electric truck (it is like the FSC maintenance vehicles you see--like bigger golf carts) , reuse glass bottles, they don't seem to have organic/free range milk. Duh. We'll see what we can do.

I bought free range eggs (6 for 95 p!) and a loaf of brown bread at a local bakery--a lot closer than I thought it was. It was a really quick walk from the house, really cute row of shops, and I was VERY tempted by cheese & onion pasties and apple turnovers. Damnit.

We're off to the health food shop across from the Art House to buy some tempeh for tempeh fajitas tonight--AND I'm going to try making homemade tortillas for the first time EVER. I'm a little nervous, but I found a youtube video that makes it look pretty easy--although the chef does seem a bit patronising.

THE rules

Robin has requested that I post THE rules I am going to follow. . . I guess she also means succinctly (NOT my strong suit)

So:

“The Megan Rules” for my Buy Nothing New year

1) I will not buy anything new that is not essential (essential including things like: food, lightbulbs, hygiene products, toilet paper, possibly cleaning products [but baking soda does an awful lot])
2) I can spend money on experiences (This includes things like films, dinner parties, theatre, gigs, art museums, days out with friends, AND includes the transportation involved in going to said experiences.)
3) Gifts for people are exempt, but I will try my hardest to get services, experiences, second hand gifts first. I will then move on to handcrafted new gifts. Only after that will I buy a regular-ol’ new item.
4) I will still aim to limit my consumption overall, and not binge on second hand kitschy sets of dishes or vintage clothing.

That’s pretty concise, right? 4 rules, and the 4th is a kinda guideline rather than a rule. So three rules and a guideline. Not bad.

As for how I’ve been doing on these, I’ve been so busy with meetings I haven’t had the chance to spend anything!

My £74.65 has NOT been taken out from the cash point yet, so I haven’t officially started counting down on that.

I DID manage to spend £6 so far at the Art House on cake and donations, AND I’m going there for lunch today. But I think that’s it so far. Seems like, once again, food will end up being the bulk of my £74.65.

I was considering buying tights before I started this challenge so I could wear skirts to work. Tights are NOT essential, so I’m just wearing trousers every day. I get goosebumps in the shower most days, so I often can’t shave my legs anyway (too much information?)

My first gift purchase is coming up—I need to get a belated Secret Santa present. The only suggestion I was given was “he likes Guinness. Get something Guiness-related in the sales.” . . . . Now, as much as I’m sure he loves random tat (a great British word meaning “worthless knick-knacky junk”), I didn’t see the point in spending £5 on a novelty Guinness Christmas ornament/hat/egg cups/plaque/whatever. So I’m getting £5 worth of local stouts so he can compare them to his favourite beverage.

As it starts to get warmer, I want to do some gardening (despite losing our allotment….. stupid lazy Megan). We have some supplies, but I think I’m going to have to work NOT to buy anything new. That means no bags of peat-free compost to start off plants, no seed packets (or does that count as food??), and no additional tools (where could I get used tools?). It’s not like I’m starting off a smallholding, but still—gardening is a hobby. Hobbies breed tools. It just happens.

in which our heroine narrowly avoids defeat and questions her rules.

I’ve told a couple people about my challenge. One has asked me about batteries, and the other wanted to know about buying pants.

Apparently no one thinks it’s odd that I’m going to try to go a year without buying food, DVDs, music, etc, but they are concerned that I’ll reach my breaking point when it comes to getting new underwear.

I almost had a problem yesterday when I thought I was going to need both lunch and dinner away from home. I ended up going to ASDA, and bought a baguette, a block of cheese, a thing of caramelised onion hummus, and a bag of oranges. I figured every single one of those would be consumed as groceries after I had eaten my lunch, so they still counted as just general “food” rather than “goods”.

I just realised that I need to cancel my eMusic subscription AND I’m not sure about the status of lovefilm. Is it an experience to rent DVDs? I don’t keep them when I’m finished. I would get them out from the library, but even they charge £1 or £2 per film. I would probably count going to the movies as an “experience”, but that involves going out of the house. Any thoughts?

Soup Night!

I know it's not against my buy nothing new rules to go out to dinner, but why bother when you can have people over for soup? Mac and I had to pare down our guestlist for the upcoming one because he doesn't think a proper host would make his guests sit on the floor. I am from the more-the-merrier camp.

Regardless, a date will be chosen for some day next week, and since we can't invite everyone this time, we'll have to have nother one real soon!

I think I'm going to have to calculate the per serving cost as an homage to the One Dollar Diet Project

An exciting-er challenge PLUS a recipe!

So today I found this absolutely AMAZING challenge. OneDollarDietProject.com – a vegan couple living in CA spent September 2008 eating $1 per person per day--and succeeded. They did go on and on about how little they ate, and their idea of vegan protein did seem to revolve a lot around peanut butter, but they did it. I sent the link to Mac and asked if he would be interested in doing the £ equivalent, but I don’t know whether he’d be willing to do it. They didn’t eat junk food, though (I don’t think they could have afforded it!) and had some really nice dinners.

I did the math quickly, and if we wanted to keep our vegetable box, that’s already £0.75 a person per day. . . . However, that’s not bad for a week’s worth of organic vegetables delivered to your door. It might mean that we’d need £2 a day per person. I think we could do that easily! I think we’d have to eat vegan for the month, though. I don’t think we could get any milk or cheese cheap enough, much less the organic dairy I would insist on.

The couple did make their own wheat-based protein (seitan) which I thought was pretty cool. Who needs semi-pricey quorn when you can make your own “mock meat”? I might give it a go. As far as I know, it just involves washing out lots and lots of flour. PostPunk Kitchen have a recipe, but it involves starting with “vital wheat gluten flour”, which I don’t know what that is. Here’s a recipe from the International Vegetarian Union (I don’t know what kombu is, though…):
____________________________________________________

Home-Made SeitanFrom: bambooshoot
Here is a recipe for home-made seitan, a wheat gluten product:
6 cups stone-ground whole wheat bread flour or high-gluten unbleached white flour
3 cups water (or more, depending on the amount of gluten in the flour)
1/2 cup tamari
12 slices fresh ginger,
each 1/8 inch thick,
and 1 piece of kombu, about 3 inches long.

1. Mix the flour and water by and or in a machine to make a medium-stiff but not sticky dough.

2. Knead the dough by hand on a breadboard or tabletop, until it has
the consistency of an earlobe (!), or by machine until the dough forms a ball that follows the path of the hook around the bowl. You may need to add a little extra water or flour to achieve the desired consistency. Kneading will take about 10-12 minutes by hand or about 6-8 minutes by machine.

3. Allow the dough to rest in a bowl of cold water for about 10 minutes., While the dough is resting, prepare the stock. In a large pot, bring to boil 3 quarts of water. Add the tamaari, ginger, and kombu, and cook for 15 minutes. Remove from heat and allow to cool. This stock must be cold before it is used. (the col liquid causes the gluten to contract and prevents th eseitan from acquiring a "bready" texture.) You will be using this stock to cook the seitan later.

4. To wash out the starch, use warm water to begin with. Warm water loosens the dough and makes the task easier. Knead the dough, immersed in water, in the bowl.

5. When the water turns milky, drain it off and refill the bowl with fresh water. In the final rinses, use cold water to tighten the gluten. If you wish, save the bran by straining the water through a fine sieve: the bran will be left behind.
Save the starch, which you can use for thickening soups, sauces, and stews.

6. When kneading, remember to work toward the center of the dough so that it does not break into pieces.

7. After about eight changes of water, you will begin to feel the dough become firmer and more elastic. The water will no longer become cloudy as you knead it.

8. To make sure you have kneaded and rinsed it enough, lift the dough out of the water and squeeze it. The liguid oozing out should be clear, not milky.

To shape the seitan, lightly oil a one pound loaf pan. Place the rinsed seitan in the pan and let it rest until the dough relaxes. (after the dough has been rinsed for the last time in cold water, the gluten will have tightened and the dough will be tense, tough, and resistant to taking on any other shape.) After it has rested for 10 minutes, it will be much more flexible.

Seitan is cooked in two steps. In the first step, the dough is put into a large pot with about 3 quarts of plain, boiling water. Boil the seitan for about 30-45 minutes, or until it floats tothe surface. Drain the seitan and cut it into usable pieces (steaks, cutlets, 1-inch chunks, or whatever) or leave whole.

Return the seitan to the cold tamari stock. Bring the stock to a boil, lower the temperature, and simmer in the stock for 1 1/2 to 2 hours (45 minutes if the seitan is cut into small pieces). This second step may also be done in a pressure cooker, in which case it would take between 30-45 minutes.

To store seitan, keep it refrigerated, immersed in the stock.
Seitan wil keep indefinitely if it is brought to a boil in the tamari stock and
boiled for 10 minutes twice a week. Otherwise, use it within 8 or 9 days.

VARIATIONS
Instead of boiling the seitan in plain water and then stock, let the seitan drain for a while after it has been rinsed. Slice it and either deep-fry or saute the slices until both sides are brown. Then cook it in the stock according to recipe.

Seitan also may be cooked (at the second step) in a broth flavored with carrote, onion, celery, garlic, tamari, and black pepper, which will give it a flavor similar to that of a pot roast, (I know, I know, I know, we've heard it all before). Shiitake mushrooms may also be added to the stock.
And there you have it. Hope in comes in handy for ya, buying premade
seitan can be pretty
costly.
___________________________________________________________

Buying Automaton

Right. So just a few days into y Buy Nothing New year, and I automatically said to Mac, "yeah, we could use some more blank DVDs" when he asked me if I wanted anything from in town. Despite the fact that he still had 4 sitting next to me. . . . that's something like 18 GB worth of space! And I thought I neded more? It didn't even click that it would be ME buying something if he "picked it up". He wasn't about to find it on the ground, or get a ripened pack off of a tree. I didn't realise until he called back a little later to ask how many that I realised it was buying something new. Duh.

Maybe this is going to be harder han I thought. I thought my previous challenge had made me so much ore aware about my buying habits and how quickly we decie we "need" new things. Obviously not.

I need to work on thinking more.

*****clarification: Mac did NOT buy the DVDs, so I did not lose. . . but purely by a fluke. It was a good thing that he called me about them so I could say something*****

Resolution-ish things?

Right… what do I want to include in my “things I will try harder at” list? Hmmmm….

Successfully buy nothing new. Pretty self-explanatory.

Get back into crafts/art on a regular basis and don’t give up/stop whenever it gets hard. I need to have less half-finished projects around. (Mac would be ecstatic if I managed that one) Plus there are all sorts of things I want to try. Maybe with “buy nothing new” keeping me from buying new crafts stuff, I will start using up some of the stuff I’ve collected over the years.

Start a yoga routine at home and do it on a regular basis that is manageable.

Run! I like running, and I love how it makes me feel good after I’ve done it, but I don’t do it often enough. I either need to learn how to pace myself and get motivated to go by myself, or find time to go with Nikolai or plan runs with Nina. I think it would be awesome to be able to run 5 miles, like Robin, but NOT every day. Unless I could run 5 miles quickly. I think I’d get bored otherwise. Or maybe I’d just get better at appreciating my own company (not a strength of mine).

Keep in touch. I’m so bad about writing e-mails, meeting up with friends who live near me, and writing actual letters. I especially LOVE sending/receiving letters, but I’ll never get any if I don’t send any. I really liked being Pat’s penpal back in the day… he has enough time on his hands at work to write back… I wonder if I could send them to Mr. Patrick X Brown, something something department, MIT. (Obviously I’d need the name of the department first)

Keeping schedules up to date and actually LOOK at them when planning things. I am going to an awful lot of meetings nowadays, and I have a very bad habit of not writing them down, or not looking at my diary when I plan other things. I want to keep doing all of this, AND have a social life, so I’ll need to be better at using my diary/calendar/google calendar (I don’t know about google calendar… I don’t use it much) to keep on top of stuff. Although, saying that, I don’t think I’ve missed an appointment yet. Maybe my memory is improving because I’m NOT writing it down. . . hmmm….

Be more organised at home. I leave clothes piled up on my dresser, and my shelving unit, and most other places. My desk will get cleaned and then immediately starts getting messy again (probably because I don’t USE it…) Our flat as a whole has loads of paper scattered around and a lot of things don’t have a ‘place’. Maybe I need Paul or Nina to come and help me sort everything out.

Keep Mac informed. This is a pet peeve of his, and I know it’s just me being inconsiderate. I’ll stop by someplace and not tell him when I’ll be back. He’ll worry or try to call, and I won’t answer my phone because I’m a doofus. Or he’ll be trying to figure out when to make dinner, and he won’t know when to expect me. It’s just courtesy.

Have soup nights! I’ve only had one so far this year, and I think they were very enjoyable last year—both by the hostess-with-the-mostest and my guests. I think more are in order.

And related to soup nights are slightly-smaller-but-more-effort-involved dinner parties!! I LOVE dinner parties. I love having people over for dinner, and then sitting around and talking for hours. It’s cheap, it’s fun, and you can hear what everyone is saying. Plus, sometimes it leads to us playing board games. And I really love board games!


Maybe these are just all things I want…. I don’t know what I should actually change about myself—something I should resolve to do. I think I might need an external observer to give me some ideas. (Like the Mac one—that’s one I KNOW I need to do, but wouldn’t have realised it without him saying anything) I will not yell at people who make suggestions. Promise.

It is really nice to look at the list and realise that NONE of these will make me buy new things. I don’t need nicotine patches, or diet books or exercise gizmos. I won’t be buying storage units to keep our flat organised, or get any new crafts supplies (unless they are secondhand). I guess I’ll have to keep my running shoes for quite a while longer…. Maybe eBay in the future?

Buy Nothing New year - 2009

Right. I am ready to start my “Buy Nothing New” year. However, I think I need to set some ground rules and explain how this is going to combine/overlap/negate some of the original £74.65 plan.

To refresh, since I am a deadbeat and haven’t blogged in a long time, I wanted to:

- stop taking purchased goods for granted
- support local businesses/artists
- be aware of the consequences my purchases have on everything
else—consumerism as an interdependent practice (fair trade? Organic? Flown here
from Timbuktu? Could I support a local independent shop? Could I fix/mend/repair
what I have instead? Will I even still want/use this later on?)

But the question was how best to do that. (is that the right way to write that?) I think having a “buy nothing new” policy will help, because it will include tangible goods, but I can still support local businesses/artists by paying for experiences. It also will mean I can buy used if I want something, which will make the temptation a little less and the goal a little more achievable.

So, let’s start with The Compact rules. It only has two rules, so that’s fairly easy.

1. Don't buy new products of any kind (from stores, web sites, etc.)
2. Borrow or buy used.

Now, the problem is that I’ll need to qualify those a little bit. Some things, like lightbulbs, you can’t buy used.

So, let’s add in some rules from Ruchi, aka Arduous.

1. I cannot buy any new durable goods.
2. I cannot buy any clothes. Period. This does not include shoes. (Why shouldn’t it include shoes? That’s bullcrap. They are still something new! I guess if I run out of ALL my shoes in a year and can’t wear any of them and need something to protect my feet, then I can buy a new pair. But I’m unlikely to get to that point.)
3. I can continue to use non-durable products I already own, but once I run out, I need to find the most environmentally friendly replacement. (Unless she’s talking about cleaning products and shampoo, I’m not buying it.)
4. I can spend money on experiences- concerts, plays, museums, etc.
5. Presents are exempted from my ban on new goods, but I try and make a good faith effort to buy something either from a small independent artist or producer, or to buy my friends experiences.

So, I think that’s pretty good. I will not buy anything new, unless it’s food, cleaning products, etc. I am NOT doing this to save money, so my shampoo and soaps will continue to be made from natural products with very little packaging—if that means spending £5 for a shampoo bar from Lush, I think that’s a good option.

What if our toaster finally gives up the ghost? We’ll try freecycle first, then maybe that charity shops that sells used appliances, and then maybe buy a new one. Toasters are fairly related to food, and heating up our whole electric oven to make toast would be seriously wasteful. But, you may ask, won’t that toaster purchase be a gateway for all sorts of other cooking-related doo-dads? NO! Why? Because I won’t let it. I think I have a good grasp on the difference between a toaster and a cute little nutmeg grater/storage container.

Hey, what a minute, you might say, I haven’t signed up for buy nothing new…. What about my birthday/Christmas/wedding/bar mitzvah present? Never fear. I’ll be following Arduous’s (Arduous’ ??) suggestion that presents are exempt. Now, I’ll still try focusing on getting people events/experiences/services for gifts (they are cooler and make for great memories) or making gifts (I will NEVER make you a macaroni spray-painted frame though, don’t worry), and you might get 5 cool used books instead of 1 new book, but you’d screw up the binding on the new book eventually anyway….

If I can’t think of anything else, I will get people a new gift, but will probably be trying to buy a lot from The Art House (I AM the craft coordinator after all) or etsy, and will try to steer clear of unnecessary plastic crap. You didn’t want plastic crap for your birthday anyway, did you?

I like the Arduous “experiences” exemption. I know that Robin probably thinks that it’s cheating, but there are a few guidelines I will set for myself. An “experience” is just that—it’s about the whole sensory package. So a trip to the Tate is A-OK, as is paying for a gig. Does this mean I’ll splash out when McFly comes to the Guildhall? No. It also means no more band CDs or T-shirts…. Unless I’m buying them as a gift. Transportation I see as included in the “experience”—to get to London for a day out or to a gig or to see friends, I’ll need to get there. Plus, if I had a car, gas would be included.

What aren’t experiences? I think that going to a restaurant with Mac counts, but grabbing a sandwich while walking around town isn’t much of an “experience”. Sitting in a café while catching up with a friend is fine, but buying a Starbucks chai or a tea from the canteen upstairs wouldn’t.

Now, “buy nothing new” does NOT mean that I will now buy loads of stuff from eBay, charity shops, or consignment stores. I think that’s going against the spirit of the challenge. I will buy things used IF and WHEN I need them. Period.

Since I’m only human, I have a funny feeling that I might not always succeed. I’m hoping that I don’t need the equivalent of Crunchy Chicken’s weekly confessional. I don’t want to fail once a week! However, so that I keep this blog going (so Robin can’t call me a deadbeat), I might need to keep up my £74.65 challenge, add other challenges, or talk about non-spending related things… Maybe an explanation of all the things I keep myself busy with when I’m NOT spending money. Or musings. Or other items of interest. We’ll just have to see.

I hope this seriously reduces my plastic usage. However, food seems to be the biggest cause of trash in our flat. Until a bulk foods place opens up where we can bring our own canisters, I don’t know if I have a chance in hell of reducing my plastic by that much…. But I’ll sure try!

Here’s to pushing yourself. And to resolutions that are NOT just for the first two weeks in January.