Sunday, July 28, 2013

Day 4-5

It's interesting how differently I am already looking at stuff.  What once brought me much angst- looking around and seeing all my stuff, is starting to look like opportunity. Who could I give that to?  How could I sell that thing.  I was even offered some free things and turned them down (what?)  And we had a garage sale and made money!  And that money is going to....a cause that is yet to be determined but it's not going to just buy more things.

It's also interesting how this month, of all months, everything is breaking.

Not kidding.  Every other day Jason suggests something else we need to replace, fix, repair, or buy and I can't tell you how liberating it is to just say, "how can we make do without it...?"  Take for instance, a tent. We have been wanting to upgrade to a bigger tent every year and every year we don't.  We barely fit and I can tell you how annoying it is to try and change clothes in a small 4 person tent you can't stand in, but, do we really need a bigger tent?  I mean, for the few times we go camping every year?!  

Guess not, cause I'm not buying it now.

Or take, for example, our deep freezer.  Somehow I made it work to fit all my stuff in our fridge freezer and the process of clearing out our deep freezer revealed something: we waste more food with a deep freezer.  How long do things sit in there and then we just don't get to them, they get freezer burn, so I throw it away.  It's practically criminal.  I''m sure there are lots of arguments to have one such as: buying in bulk quantities which is cheaper etc.  However, we don't have a family of 10, we have a family of 4.  Is it really necessary to buy 10 kg of meat at a time?

So this 'no spending' project has created other projects: we're 'eating down' the fridge and freezer and pantries. Cooking up that leftover casserole, thawing those homemade muffins (what kind are they?) and starting to eat what we've horded.  And since we couldn't store all the berries I'd hoped to, we've made more jam and given some away to neighbors.  I'm actually kind of excited about not forcing myself to stockpile just 'in case.' And, imagine the garage space we will gain without a deep freezer?

The only purchase that has me humming and hawing is our camera.  We've had it for over 5 years and it has traveled to Africa, Europe, and through house buying, baby raising, and many trips in-between.  We love it, but it is broken.  We could take it to Nikon to get fixed for $175 or buy a new one for $300?  Or no camera at all (boo!).  Don't you just hate that technology breaks?  You buy it, it breaks, or they invent something better.  Jason's really pushing for a new one and he rarely buys the latest and greatest techie stuff...

But we'll sit on it, wait on it, be patient, research and just NOT BUY anything until after 30 days. 

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