Reflections on a month without buying anything new

Well, I resolved at the first of the year to follow the San Francisco Compactors and not purchase any new objects this year.

I can buy food and essential toiletries like soap. I can buy medicines. I can buy services.

But no books, CDs, gadgets, clothes etc.

So far, it has not been too difficult. I do think that I am overcompensating on my food purchases. I hoard food anyway, but lately it seems like I am buying even MORE food because it is more of less the only thing I am allowed to buy. This needs to stop.

I also have had a few quandaries over services; I wanted to join a gym to increase my general fitness and hemmed & hawed about whether this was allowed. Finally, I decided that me using the facilities in an existing gym had pretty little environmental impact and what impact there was would be worth it in terms of my improved health. So, I joined the local gym.

I also had a minor dilemma as it was the birthday of a friends 9 year old son. Normally, I would get him something like a video game, but that was out this year. After some thought, I decided to make him a cake and some biscuits and decorate them with the Chelsea Football Club logo. I purchased some icing "cake toppers" from a lady on eBay, on the premise that they were "food". Maybe a weasel way out, but they seemed to make him pretty happy anyway.

I am still debating whether or not to buy a new TV - I had decided that this would be "allowed" as my old TV is nearly dead and 11 years old. But I have not purchased one yet. It was funny to watch TV at some one else house and see BLUE - the colour is so bad on my telly that I no longer have blues.

There have been a few moments where I thought "wish I could buy that". But I am sure I will be just fine without pretty much everything.

A reminder to myself of why I am doing this:

"1) to go beyond recycling in trying to counteract the negative global environmental and socioeconomic impacts of U.S. consumer culture, to resist global corporatism, and to support local businesses, farms, etc. -- a step, we hope, inherits the revolutionary impulse of the Mayflower Compact;

2) to reduce clutter and waste in our homes (as in trash Compact-er);

3) to simplify our lives (as in Calm-pact)

For me, the goals of simplifying my life and reducing my environmental footprint are of equal size.

2007 is going to be the year where I pare everything down to what I really need and want and get rid of all the extraneous distractions of my life."