Buy Nothing New - year in review

Okay,
So I kinda slipped on the whole blog thing. (I'm sure lots of you are now talking to the computer saying "THAT'S a bit of an understatement.") The Buy Nothing New challenge continued and went pretty well, but the blog updates were just nonexistent. For that, I apologise. I'm just not good at consistently writing things. This happened when I was little girl, and even later as a teenager, and kept trying to keep a diary. I'd get about 3 days into it, and get bored.

So now it's a bit of a recap. Here we go:

I DIDN'T BUY
I sucessfully did not buy anything new for myself. Any of my biggest vices: craft supplies (at least not new), kitchen gadgets, home accessories or storage options. I also didn't buy any CDs, new clothes or shoes (my sneakers have holes in the back of both feet.... it's fine unless it rains), socks or underwear (although Robin kept giving me pairs she got for free from Victoria's Secret), jewellery or accessories, and or anything else cute that I wanted to get "just because". In fact, not only did I not buy any craft supplies, but I also ended up giving some away on freecycle. Not buying things just because I had a half-formed project in my head forced me to really look at what I had and realise that I didn't need about 40 pairs of knitting needles... especially because I hadn't done any knitting ALL year. I BOUGHT: Used - quite a few clothes, a bunch of books, an Etch-a-Sketch (!!), a couple pairs of shoes off eBay (and NONE of them fit!), some pillowcases (for their cute printed fabric), a beautiful blue travel typewriter from Belgium (a bit like this one, but a deeper shade of blue AND the travel case matches in colour! ... oh, and some of the keys are different so it's almost a QWERTY ), a set of cute retro cups (a lot like these ones), and probably some other stuff I can't remember. It wasn't too much, but it certainly allowed me some random needless purchased, and alowed me to get some stuff I needed.

I also bought new some supplies to fix up our old flat (a new shower curtain and paint, rollers and brushes to cover marks on the walls), but those all got left at the flat. I'm sure I bought a couple light bulbs, but those were exempt because you can't buy them used. I think I may have bought one roll of tin foil ALL year, and no clingfilm. I started covering a lot of stuff with a baking sheet while cooking, and then we used a lot of random plastic tubs from takeaways, margarine, and yogurt instead of storing stuff with cling film.

Other new things were gifts for people (many were handmade, although not enough). I also got in the habit of buying postcards because they are like minigifts, but I could still support artists who'd made them and even keep them for a couple days. I bought some zines for The Art House to have as references, but I've been lazy and haven't yet taken them there. Oops. I bought a LOT of stuff at the Craft and Zine Fair that I organised.

Unfortunately, I failed constantly at not buying "convenience" food, I bought quite a few packs of crisps while at gigs (although that could be argued as an "experience"), and some tea/chai while out and about. Probably less than during 2008, but it still wasn't good.

I FIXED (Macgyver style or otherwise)
A pair of shoes that were wearing out by adding heel supports that I had sitting in a drawer
A couple tops by darning
Two pairs of trousers (I still need to fix three more) by taking in the waist. Up until I learned how to do this, I didn't have a single pair of trouers that fit me correctly--they all just sat on my hips, making the crotch of the trousers ridiculously low.

We also made do with our one-side-at-a-time toaster, glass roasting dishes doubling up as baking sheets, and I kept finding batteries and a never ending supply of dental floss sat around the house.

I LEARNED
- Take care of your stuff. There are a lot of things that I wish I'd paid more attention to them. I lost my stainless steel water bottle by leaving it behind at a conference--you aren't going to find that used. I misplaced other things, spilled stuff on clothes, and marked up our walls in the old flat so we had to buy paint and brushes. Not being able to buy new cured me of the disposable attitude we seem to have with our things.

- "A stitch in time saves nine" is actually fairly accurate. Mending and repairing has been key. I've successfully learned to darn things (although my attempts are a bit clumsy), so unless you stared at the back of my green cardigan, you'd never know that there was a little hole at the top of it. I'm sure with practice and a wider range of colours and shared of thread, I'll improve. I've thought about getting a darning mushroom, but I'm not entirely sure what you do with it.

- Take stock of what you already have (and use it). There were lots of times where I'd tell myself that I "needed" something which wasn't actually the case. I didn't really need more tops or jumpers, as I already had stacks at home. A lot of my craft supplies got used up because I actually paid attention to what I had already, instead of buying things when I saw them. As a result, I have two sets of really adorable bunting made with floral prints I'd had for YEARS and hadn't done anything with held up by some of the ribbon I'd bought ages ago without any real purpose intended.

- If you're going to buy something, go for quality. I really wish that I'd taken that advice when I bought the shoes that now have holes in them, or the baking sheets and cake pans that keep having the non-stick flake off. My mother has had the same baking sheets for almost my whole life. I need ones like that--I've gone through three sets in four years. With the money I'd spent, I could have bought really nice ones and saved myself a lot of hassle. The next pairs of shoes or boots that I buy are going to be ones I can get resoled by a cobbler. No more disposable shoes for me. I'm hoping to upgrade some of our freecycled furniture piece by piece to good quality antiques (or almost antiques)....or at least once we figure out which country we're going to live in.

- Avoid temptation and gain some perspective. I didn't walk into West Quay for months on end last year. When I did, I tended not to look in the shop windows. I'm a bit better now, having actually gone into TopShop, H&M, Principles and Debenhams to look at what's in style so I can see what I already have and what I might try to pick up used. But it was a lot easier not to walk into the kitchen supply shop in Winchester than it would have been to have to debate with myself why I should not buy something. I feel like I am much more aware of the act of shopping now, though, so I don't feel as tempted to buy things. I'd bet that going for a couple months without shopping would do the same--you'd think about the process a bit more, consider whether or not you want something as much as you initially thought.

WOULD I DO IT AGAIN?
Absolutely. It wasn't that difficult, but I'd try to get ALL gifts for people as handmade (by me or others) or secondhand if I did it again. I don't feel like I suffered through the year, and most of the time I didn't even think about the challenge.

I'm in the paper!

Read all about it here.

Okay, so it's a horrible photo. But I'm still happy that the whole Buy Nothing New got out there. Hopefully I didn't found like too much of a nutcase or like too much of a hippy.

Any thoughts?

Unfortunately, I forgot/didn't manage to get the radio show taped... In fact, I didn't even listen to it (who likes the sound of their own recorded voice?) Oops.

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. . . .

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?

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*****

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.