To redeem or not to redeem?

I found all of this in my purse...

• $40 credit + 30% coupon I can use at the GAP, Banana Republic, or Old Navy
• $22 credit to use at Val's Basket Warehouse
• $30 Target giftcard
• $5 Sephora giftcard
• $35 worth of Home Depot giftcards

I can't let all of this go to waste or can I?

~J~

Woke up this morning and realized that last night I forgot to add I also have a $21 credit to use at Charlotte Russe and $10 off a $10 purchase at Kohl's when I use my Discover card.

We don't officially start this plan until tomorrow, so do I go on a shopping spree today? I don't think so, but will need to make the best decisions I can when redeeming these credits since there are certain things we can't buy secondhand.

One of our goals is not to buy anything made in sweatshops. I'm curious if the stores listed above sell things that qualify in this category. I'll let you know what I find...

~J~

Emails, ads, coupons and more

I just received emails from 3 stores I regularly shop at with their weekly deals, featured items, and coupons ~ always a temptation. So I'm taking myself off their list. See no evil.... buy no evil?? On top of that, 2 pairs of earrings I bought off the internet arrived today. While they are handmade by a girl in PA, they still had to be shipped here. The seller sent a "free shipping of next purchase" voucher. I LOVE her work, very tempting, but the 2 I just added to my collection is enough - I can make my own from here on out.

Less than 3 days and we officially begin. Gearing up for this journey I'm seeing many challenges ahead. Buying a house, holidays, birthdays, friends having babies... running out of perfume! :D It's definitely doable.

K :)

Creepy Commercial

I just watched a disturbing commercial for a product (to remain nameless so not to promote it) that catches, kills, and contains mice so all you have to do is toss the entire plastic contraption in the garbage. Disgusting! Turns out it may not always kill the poor thing, but just break its legs instead of its neck. The tag line in this commercial is "no drama." Seriously?!?!
~J~

To new beginnings

What if we could stop buying anything new for one whole year? Can we? Will we? Over the past few years we've both become more aware consumers, or so we like to think we are. Until the coupon is waved in our face or the clearance sign is screaming our name. What is it that makes us think we actually NEED a fraction of the things we buy? By the looks of our closets you can see we don't.

Shopping today at a local craft fair got us talking. We decided to make a pact to not buy anything new for one year, starting October 1st, 2009. It actually started out with clothes and quickly turned into more. Why stop with clothes right?

We are making a conscious effort to stop spending our money on frivolous things. It's scary thinking about why things are so cheap and where they came from, it seems like everything comes from China. Can we really avoid it? We want to make a change and along the way save some change too.

We know this could sound extreme, so we set some guidelines. We are going to ask ourselves 3 Questions before buying anything:
Do I really need this? (do you have already have something you could use, how often will you actually use it?)
Can I buy this second hand, make it, or borrow it?
Is it sustainable and not harmful to our environment?

4 days til we start! But seriously, haven't we already?

Karin and Jill