I’ve been thinking about what sort of guidelines I want to set myself for this challenge, about what I’m allowed to buy and what I can’t. Being completely lazy I’ve decided that the rules that Fiona has set herself will do quite nicely for me as well. If you haven’t read her blog entry, basically the only new stuff she’s allowing herself to buy are the bare essentials of food, toiletries and cleaning products.
What this means for me is that apart from the above, (almost) everything I buy will have to be second-hand. I may have to make exceptions for certain clothes though, as I’m not sure yet whether I can really make that leap and buy a second-hand pair of pants (and why a pair when there is only one of them!) In addition, I really want to try and justify each purchase as well, so that I only buy the things that I really need. So these are great aspirations, but how have they worked out in practice? The answer is a bit mixed.
The sad truth is that since I feel I can justify buying something because it is second-hand, I’ve been buying a lot of second-hand books, and saying to myself that I really need them and it’s ‘okay’. So I’m a bit disappointed with myself, and I really need to be more aware of this. I’m realising that by doing this challenge, I’ll need to address this addiction by going through a detox, and weaning myself off buying stuff for gratification. I’m not a big shopper, but it does appear that I have a problem.
Nothing to see here, mooooove along.....
On the good side, I’ve found that you can enjoy yourself with only the clothes on your back, the shoes on your feet and a nice bit of sunshine. Last Friday I walked into work along the river and had such a lovely time it left me in a really good mood for the rest of the day. I met some a cow, stroked a couple of nice dogs and just generally felt quite chilled out and relaxed. The full set of pictures can be found here. So that has cheered me up, and showed me that you don’t need a credit card in order to make yourself happy.