A Year Off

I struggle, like everyone, with keeping life simple. It is hard to separate want and need sometimes, and too easy to buy something on sale that you may not actually need. One of my resolutions was to tread lightly on the shopping & acquiring front this year. We are down to one salary, we have many many mounds of crap to get out of our house, and yet the lure of organic cotton pajamas at Garnet Hill for only $6, when we have enough pjs right now, is a siren song for me.

I used to read a blog called In The Trenches of Motherhood. All of a sudden, at the turn of the new year, she changed her blog title and focus; it became 'A Year Off''. I am jumping on the no-buying bandwagon. I'll try to also jump on the handmade gifts for this year - with enough forethought I certainly can find time to make birthday and Christmas presents. It will feel great to slow the flow of stuff into the house, and increase the purging until we are down to a manageable amount of belongings.

I already know that the no-buying rule will be relaxed for daycare supplies - Pequita needs something to climb on in our house. She is not a sit-down-and-quietly-draw/ read/ *anything* child. She is an active physical kid who has to be moving when I read to her - if I stop a book early, she runs over to get me back on the right page. She IS listening, just not sitting next to me. As I write this, we have her slide set up in the living room and she started playing on it at 7:45 this morning. So I'll be buying, or making if I can't find what I want affordably, a set of heavy step stools with rubber bases for her to push together and climb over, push up against the couch to climb up, and use a a basis for a fort. I'll let you know how I do. It ought to be something I come smack up against frequently, as one of my backup kid entertainment activities is wandering around Target for an hour and leaving with the one bottle of infant Tylenol I went in for. The lure of the myriad items I don't need but could easily enjoy buying is strong.

How much could you save this year?