After taking a month off for August it is now time for me to get back on the horse and try to enact some change. In the past I have spent the month of September doing a spending freeze in order to make up for the extra money I tend to spend during the summer months as well as to declutter and reduce my footprint.
The Challenge: Do not buy anything during September that is not readily consumable and will be gone by the end of the month.
- Why?: Beyond the nostalgia of taking “Spending fasts” during the month of September it actually makes a lot of sense. I am not planning on traveling much, the weather is between seasons so I won’t need to buy new clothes, and I don’t have much planned so I won’t have to buy any special equipment. Beyond that I haven’t done much decluttering since my January Challenge and I want to stop my acquisition of stuff since I will hopefully be moving during the next few months.
- The Benefits: It is pretty great to save money, and not have to worry about buying anything. While I can buy food this will also push me to use up the things I already have on hand rather than buying more freezer furniture. This will hopefully make it easier to move since I do have a tendency to go a bit overboard when shopping for bargains and tossing them into my chest freezer. During my January Challenge I found it to be very liberating when getting rid of things, hopefully reducing my intake will also help make me feel good about my space.
- The System: It is pretty straightforward, don’t buy anything. If there is something that I think I need I can wait a few weeks and then buy in during October, but I find that I will probably not want it by then, so it will be a great way to prevent impulse purchases.
I am at the point in my life where I need to transition more from having stuff to having things. I spent all of college picking furniture out of people’s trash and buying things at closeout stores, and I was gradually able to break myself of those habits and purchasing higher quality stuff. If something costs more money you are more likely to take better care of it and won’t be so apt to throw it away, reducing my carbon footprint while allowing me to have nicer things. I guess that now it is time to grow up a bit and invest in having nice things. Breaking myself of my nihilistic views on having nice things will be hard, but then again I am always up for a challenge.
Owen Foley 