Positives

After being so cryptic and then writing all my woes and frustrations into my paper journal I'm now trying to be positive. So I've found a heap of information on the web that will help me with this huge change in life (although that makes me want to just get on with it!) and joined a forum called 'Aussies Living Simply'. I'll put it on my links when I get around to it. I found some interesting-looking books too, but I don't want to buy anything really so I just wrote down the details for later. Oh, and a great tomato sauce (as in for pasta) recipe.

I really think I'd like to try not buying anything. Watching ads on tv for this or that thing to buy, have, use or whatever makes me feel like this world has gone completely off track. There is one ad that gets to me the most - it is for a shop called Gifts for Guys and the things they advertise are competely useless and unnecessary (not to mention ugly in the extreme) and I think about the people that buy this stuff and what they get out of it and if they even think about where it came from (what resources were used to make and ship it), whether they really need it, whether they really want it, even.

I am by no means perfect. I make some terrible food purchases that I wish I didn't. But there are issues there that go way deeper than wanting to make a difference to the world. But I have stopped buying other things - books for one. After selling my 500+ books and enjoying the freedom that that has given me I now try not to buy books and if I do (I read a lot and sometimes it is unavoidable) I always give them away. Plus, my paper usage at school can sometimes get way out of control. I do try though.

But I don't buy other things. I spend my money on living stuff - the basics; food, petrol, rent, bills and then I save. I would like to try to do more though. Perhaps that can be my first project in this life change - don't buy anything new or at all if possible (not counting essentials). There is a social movement that supports this way of living. It is called Compacting and follows the idea that we don't need to buy things, especially new things. There are all sorts of supporting 'groups' too like Freecycle and Really Really Free Market. I'm going to look in to these things a bit more. My biggest decision is to not buy any new winter clothes. I have all the clothes I had last year and surely I don't need any more to get me through (although a new spencer might have to be an exception - it is cold, cold, cold here!). I feel bad that I just went to Singapore with Mum and bought a (more than a) few things - clothes and shoes mostly. But that is done and now I just have to look forward.

No more buying!!