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