The Not New Year

Recycled Not New Year
Summer 2009 – Winter 2009

We are doing it all over again! Summer Solstice 2009 to Winter solstice 2009 we will be on the wagon again, coming off the consumer wheel and hopefully saving my bank balance!

There are a few more rules this time!

1. We can buy recyled things and handmade. This isn’t going to include all “ethical” products, otherwise, with the help of the many, many good websites out there, I will continue to consume at an unsustainable rate.

2. The e-Bay habit must be addressed. Yes, its all second hand, but it gets out of control. The new rule is I can only buy if I have earnt money by selling. Essentially I want to make spending a closed loop system.

So why? Spending money is starting to again become a comfort thing – feel bad? Buy something nice! Oh dear. Add to that the fact that I am losing my job at the end of July. Money is going back to being tight, not a great place to be at.

I also feel that there are more lessons to be learn’t and more experiences to be had. Six months is not long enough. Although this time there will be less of a steep learning curve as I know where to buy things from and how to swap for what I need.

Wish me/us luck!

Archive:

The what-we-do-now-bit
Spring 2009

So, been there, done that (see below). What did not buying anything new for 6 months teach us? That its possible and what a mad consumerist society we live in. I guess I was hoping to get a few things out of my system, but I have found that my thinking is an even deeper shade of philosophical green now.

I have switched (in 2009) to buying second hand and eco/green/fairtrade bits and bobs. This has turned out quite complex (see some of the posts!), and I still find I am buying too much stuff, even if it is very right on. So where to go from here is still a question….

- Tammy

The What-New-Year?

Archive: Summer 2008

The mad idea:

To go from Mid Summer Solstice to Mid Winter Solstice without buying anything NEW.

What does this mean?

This means that we aim to buy everything we need second hand, or if we can, simply ‘make-do’.

What does this not mean?

Guys we need food, fuel, soap, toilet roll….. BUT we already shop at the local famer’s market, local food/farmers shops as we are passionate about local food.

What we will be doing differently is re-assessing the amount of packaging we accept when we do get sucked into the supermarket. We currently use a mix of the local supermarket and Ocado. We like Ocado as it cuts down on fuel, and stops impulse buys that supermarkets attempt to manipulate you to do.

Who are we?

Well, here comes the humour – we a have a baby! Little Megan is ten months old and is a lot of the motivation with this ‘project’ – we are drowning in stuff and we dont want to raise her like this.

As a couple, we are tackling this from the same angle – climate change and the oil crisis. Which I am sure we will lament over at some point. However Tammy’s motivation also includes the spiritual side of materialism.

What we do already

• Recycle. Although no doorstep collection, so have to take in the car to recycling banks
• Old Landrover is fueled with chip fat! But other car is diesel…. oh dear….
• Cloth Nappies – wake up world, its the way forward!
• Green electricity from grid. In our dreams we would generate our own. Becoming pretty strict about power consumption
• Shop at Farmer’s markets/ farm shops
• Compost

The future:

We will re-assess how things are going, and may continue for a full year!