I mean buy nothing NEW...for one year

I've been inspired by my friend Donna whom practiced this all of last year. Just around Christmas 2007, I started thinking about all this STUFF, clutter, collecting and feeling rather 'heavy' about it all. What we own seems to own us. Not very liberating.

One late night, I surfed the net and googled "buy nothing" and "buy nothing for one year". I was more than intrigued. While I had already known of the 'Nov. 24 buy nothing day', I learned a lot of other new information!

I learned of "zen santa's" - people who dressed up as Santa and sat in lotus pose in malls promoted 'no shopping' around the Chrismas season.

I learned of a group of people in San Fran., California who committed to this practice for one year and inspired thousands of other to join in. They call themselves "The Compact".

I learned about Alternative Gifts International (AGI). Instead of tangible gift giving, use your money to support endeavours world wide. Like buying bikes for women and girls in Tanzania and Namibia (incidentally, the bike saves them 3 hours a day when travelling 10 miles not to mention being able to carry 5 times more firewood than on foot.) Or enhancing the physical well being of children with cerebral palsy in Vietnam by providing therapy equipment and staff training. AGI has endless other ideas. Awesome.

I learned that Oxfam Unwrapped also have a similar plan in place. Teaching a teacher or buying a goat for a nomadic tribe.

The more I read, the more inspired I became.

I started January 1, 2008. It is now Jan. 5 and I feel lighter already. Why ? I am USING UP the things that are already in my home that are already BOUGHT, NEW and UNUSED. I am beginning to get resourceful and am catching myself in the middle of a thought or spoken sentence. For example, my friend is soon heading to Costa Rica. Having travelled there twice I LOVE that country. Before realizing it, I was already asking my friend that if I gave her money could she buy something- you know- a souvenir for my three-year old daughter. I caught myself mid-sentence.

I am becoming increasing aware of my way of thinking about shopping and acquiring things. I am watching my thoughts and the ingrained habit about just going out to buy something!

Greetings cards are an incredible money sucking concept that people end up throwing out (or at least hopefully recycling). A card these days easily costs $5 CAN and where does it end up ? I just made three greeting cards today using photographs-okay I had to go get them printed at 15 cents a piece. The cards are personal and customized with the person in mind. They're an instant keeper. And well, I guess I saved $15 which I will put aside for a family vacation.

While saving money is not the point of this journey, it will be a nice byproduct.

I can already see that I will be USING UP what's already in our home, thus slowly DE-cluttering our space. And THAT's exciting. I shall savour that ceremony too.

You know, I am already feeling a little lighter these days !