The ruminations of an artist on art & life...art quilts, beading, knitting, drawing, painting, printmaking, bookmaking are all my passions, I love to explore creating....

Sunday, July 29, 2007

Time's Up for Buy Nothing New!

Some of you readers my know that 6 months ago I took a personal pledge--to not buy anything new for 6 months. Well, on August 1st--the 6 months is over. How did this pledge affect me? Well, to my surprise this pledge did not really force much of change to my lifestyle. I already mostly shopped at local thrift stores for many items--the biggest change was not buying new books, or yarn, or beads. The 2 areas I cheated (---just a little ;-) in were books and yarn. I did buy 3 new books (in 6 months! that is hardly nothing...for me--I used to buy 3 or 4 a month) and some yarn for projects. (Not all this yarn, but you get the picture....)

The other area I noticed was the thought process I went through on small impulse type purchases. At first, I would have to remind myself--even though I liked that cool drawing pen--I did not really need it? and besides--it was new--so a "no-no." Later, I could just look at goods for sale, and know I was just looking--and WOW! did I save $$$ by not buying all those impulse purchases??? Yep! plus---less clutter from needless stuff. I guess this was a good reminder that most of the stuff we think we need (or our culture tells us we need)--we can do without.

That said, I do have a small list of new things I plan to purchase--most having to do with recycling or alternatives modes of transportation, or my design business: bike racks for my bike (so I can carry groceries), this water bottle (so I can always carry filtered water from our tap), and a larger bed scanner and printer (for my design business), and a laptop (again for my business). But most other stuff I can do without---what a revelation!

4 comments:

Mary Timme said...

I'm finally doing stuff about my 'stuff,' most of which I'm finding I don't need. I haven't said I won't buy more beads, but know I have enough to last me till I die, so I'm thinking about a moratorium on beads pretty much. It is freeing.

I really like the water bottle. I'm thinking that might be a good one.

Anonymous said...

I love my Klean Kanteen! And good for you on the shopping bags.

Now if only we could do something about all the plastic that goes into the cloth shopping bags.

I just got back from the Temescal Farmer's Market. Believe it or not, it's a sea of plastic!

Anonymous said...

Hi Aurora!


Bumped with your blog through BlogHer. Hope you could also join a community of women here:

http://forums.her-desk.com

You can share your thoughts, and most especially, make friends to all women around the world.

See you there. :)

Aurora said...

Hi Joie--I looked at your forum--it does look good--however, I just do not have time to participate in a forum---being a fulltime design student, plus starting to job hunt---I barely amange to blog here! but thanks for the invite!