‘Buy nothing new for a year’, is what Little Pop wanted for her 21st Birthday. As a parent I support my child in her their pursuits, this request was more than that for me.
Two years ago I left my job of 29 years, it was always a battle for us to pay the bills anyway, but when i was offered a generous redundancy package I took it as an opportunity for us to live the life we had always dreamed of (just for a while anyway!). For the past 1.5 years since I left work we have brought what we wanted with little thought about the impact the goods we
purchased were having on the environment. There came a point when I said ‘I don’t want any more junk!‘
To be honest I’m not entirely sure what I buy that is so bad, but Little Pop assures me that we will be significantly decreasing our environmental footprint by doing this. We still haven’t established any definitive rules around what we can and can’t buy (although we really should get onto doing that) but I plan on buying as much food as possible from local farmers and thus reducing the environmental costs associated with spraying, transporting and packaging the foods we buy (I know this isn’t really classified as buying nothing new but I am really planning on getting back to our roots when it comes to food).
Back to buying nothing new… We are a household of two girls so as you can imagine clothes are probably the biggest product we tend to buy new. We are a household of collectors, you never know when you will need it. We went to my wardrobe tonight and found a skirt I have had since I was 17 yrs old because ‘one day I will fit it!‘.
I would like to have a go at making things like skin care products myself from locally sourced resources wherever possible.
I plan on implementing a similar strategy in regards to cleaning products although this won’t be a huge difference to the way our household operates now. Due to health reasons i am unable to use powerful chemical cleaning products so most of the time we use natural home made cleaning products anyway. those who know me knows that I love my bicarb soda and lemon juice (these two are must have for anyone looking to make their own cleaning products!) – soap flakes, natural oils and vinegar are also great! I plan on regularly putting up posts with various home made cleaning product recipes and showing the results they can have (for proof of course!) for anyone looking to take a more natural approach when it comes to the cleaning of the house.
Oh and lastly…something I’m looking forward to with ‘buy nothing new’ is de-cluttering our house! We have a third bedroom that is unusable due to’ stuff’ – note that cleaning this room does not mean buying storage solutions, but to really look at what we need and get rid of anything we no longer need.
I think our motto should be, ‘clean natural, eat in season, donate, up-cycle, recycle and live life chemical free.‘
Lets see how our Buy nothing new rule negotiation goes
Stay healthy and happy ..Big Pop.
Thriftypop 