It was a conversation with my friend Caitlin last September that spurred the idea of planning out a year of not buying anything. I wondered if it could be done. I immediately started thinking about stock piling things that I couldn't make like toothpaste (I know you can make it, but we all have our luxury items!), other hygiene products, sunglasses, socks etc. In our next conversation I told her how I'd really been thinking about doing it and how. Her boyfriend asked of the stockpiling, "But isn't that cheating?" I decide: no. Not if you're the one making the rules to abide by before hand.
That was six months ago. I originally put off the plan until after I'd purchased books for the fall term, but then life got busy with two jobs and school, and "saving time" with convenient purchases (and a few "comfort purchases") ruled life once again. This year I have struggled more than most with finances and have struggled to see how and why. Sure I'm a somewhat compulsive "wanter/buyer", but I feel that I really don't spend that much money compared to most peers. Seeing that money was becoming a theme in arguments with my boyfriend, a recent homeowner now also my landlord, his wonderful parents gifted me "You Need A Budget Software". While it has helped me visualize the money coming and going, I needed something more. All the Dave Ramseys, Timothy Ferrisss, and secretly hippie "Who Knew" guys from tele-commercials in the world could not do it for me - sure they could give me a map, but I wanted to make my own route.
Up until a few weeks ago I was seriously considering going and working on a long line boat in Alaska for the summer in order to, in tandem with getting out in the beautiful open and seeing my big brother Brian, make massive amounts of money and triumphantly return to Portland in the fall and be a student first and foremost and employee only secondary to studies. Now I'm challenging myself to create a Salmon-friendly alternative!
I'm now drafting my ground rules in a way that make sense to my life and cut out unnecessary suffering: I will purchase necessary services and items as needed, but there will be a tight budget to abide by. Things permitted will be transportation/gas, craft supply items, and oh-so-occasional "study money" for the tea house. All groceries will be strictly scrutinized before being permitted entrance to my basket. But I will buy them. I don't live on a farm nor in deeply forage-able lands, after all.
But I did seek out a home in the West in the pioneer spirit of my Irish ancestors (ok, they sought the cities of the East) and those here before me, no? And I do have my own philosophical, social, and political views on the commerce system as it exists today in America to add to my ground map. City or no city, I'm pledging to pursue the trailblazers' dream
