Our Blah Blah Blog: My new idea

I have been reading my library books, one of them being 'In CHEAP We Trust' by Lauren Weber. It gives a history of frugality in the United States. It's interesting and funny. I especially enjoyed the chapter called 'Eco-cheap'. I learned a lot about Americans and our over consumption, how we consume the world's raw materials far out of proportion to our numbers. I guess I knew this but as I read statistics it put it more into perspective for me. I'd like to quote a paragraph:

"The environment sensibility and the thrifty sensibility share an abhorrence of one thing: waste. It comes down to a fundamental respect for the value of objects. This is a trait that's hard to come by in our throwaway society, perhaps because we're so disconnected from the origins of our possessions and the people who labored to make them. A kitchen table becomes something more when our own hands sanded it down; a wool sweater knitted by a friend has greater value than one that was made on a machine loom in Vietnam and picked up for a low price at Macy's."

I've always liked the idea of DIY projects but this brings it to another level for me. It's more then just saving money, it's making an impact on the environment and doing my part to make a difference.

The book talks about a challenge one lady decided to do for a year to experiment in low-impact living. She would buy no new stuff, no new clothes, no new gadgets, no new books, and so on. She could buy anything she wanted secondhand, and she could still buy food, medicine, safety-related items, and services like concert and train tickets. The main idea was to reduce her consumption of stuff, all those tangible things that clutter the house, consume raw materials, and eventually take up residence in landfills.

I've actually talked to Jon recently about living a minimalistic lifestyle and downloaded a book called 'Family-Sized Minimalism'. I like the idea of living minimally and I think we could make it work for us. The problem is I have so many ideas but its hard to implement these ideas or new ways of living when you don't live on your own. There's so much I want to do or try but I don't feel like I can until we are on our own, in our place where we can establish rules and routines.

But just like No Spend Month I think we can try this challenge of no new items for... well I don't know about a year, I'll have to discuss it with Jon first. But why not, we can do a year! Shouldn't be too hard since we don't really have any extra money anyway. But it's a way of thinking, it's meant to change the way you think about the environment and how much waste we create by buying new things. I'm fine with buying used items, I'm always looking at Craigslist for a Kitchenaid mixer because I want one so bad! I'd be happy with a used one.

Some of the ideas I would like my family to do in general for saving money and the environment include: building our own tiny house, or buying an old fixer upper and doing the work ourselves, growing a garden and raising chickens, extreme couponing (I watched on the TLC show, a 14-year old girl and a college kid living in a dorm do it, I can do it! Although I have yet to see anyone with a baby or a toddler on the show). Following Dave Ramsey's guide to financial freedom (or at least creating a budget and eliminating debt), living minimally, making as much food from scratch as well as making my own laundry detergent, body wash, shampoo/conditioner, cleaning products, etc. I think we can live without cable or maybe even a TV since we currently do not own one (that is when we eventually live on our own we will not have one). I would like to go down to one car again. I want to take a class to learn how to alter store-bought clothes (thrift-store-bought). There are other ideas I can't think of right now, but you get the idea.

And for fun I have included pictures for you to enjoy. Starting with my cute boys, followed by a couple of family pictures and then a few funny pictures from a new app I was playing around with called FaceGoo :)