6 weeks in and still (mostly) on the wagon

So my quest to buy nothing for 12 months continues, and while I'm not going to claim total success I have made some significant changes to my spending habits. It's helped me to identify where my real weaknesses are and what I need to do differently if I'd like to continue to buy less in the future. It's really highlighting to me how shopping has become my principle pass time. From what I do on holiday, to my spare time, to my main bonding activity with my mother. It literally occupies the majority of my time when I'm not at work, and that's kinda scary.

So I have made a handful of purchases, I wish I'd made less but I'm also not going to beat myself up about this. Buying some things, be they presents, gifts or consumables, is something I will always have to do, and inevitably this leads me to buying the odd thing for myself. I'm going to continue trying to buy nothing for myself, but I know this will be impossible. So far I've bought;

1. Some books. All bar one of these relate to my school work or were for use in school, so I don't think I have to feel too bad about this. The other one was for my book group. I'll need to keep buying a book a month (assuming it's one I don't currently own) for this. On the plus side I rarely keep the book after reading it, so I won't be filling the house with more crap.

2. A cardigan. It was brand new, cheap, and very nice in a charity shop in Oswestry. My mum pretty much makes her living buying things cheaply from charity shops and jumble sales and then selling them on Ebay. Consequently time spent with her often involves trailing around charity shops. When my mum and her partner joined us for a couple of days on our holiday we visited a dozen or so charity shops. Temptation was everywhere and I inevitably caved, but it could have been a lot worse.

3. 2 dresses. One was a drunken purchase from Facebook from a selling group I haven't (yet) unfollowed. It was a space themed dress I've been looking for for months to go with a space themed brooch my husband bought me for a really good price. Of course karma bit instantly with the seller accidentally mistyping her email causing me to send the funds to the wrong Paypal address. It took weeks to resolve, the universe was trying to tell me to behave! The other was an Etsy purchase with the gift card my in-laws got me for my birthday. As I always do with gift cards I dither for weeks trying to decide what to use it on. It was becoming an excuse to endlessly browse Etsy and add stuff to my basket only to reconsider and delete it later. I decided to finally bite the bullet and buy myself a handmade custom dress in Pacman fabric. It should be very fun, and arrive in a month or so.

4. a case for my laptop. I kinda needed one, and I found a nice one reduced to a very cheap price. The bargain justification I find myself using a lot, i.e. "it's fine because it was so cheap"....

These are the only non-consumables I've bought myself since 5/3/2018. There have been other things, I've bought gifts, a ball for Arthur, a cup with a straw so that Arthur can drink smoothies, but these were permissible exceptions. I have been given quite a few things by Chris, mainly because this month has seen our 10 year anniversary and he's just recently found a jewellery brand that I like so he's got a steady stream of gift ideas. This included this fabulous Kraken necklace, which I quite enjoyed planning an outfit around for an afternoon out in Manchester.

Overall we have certainly added more to the house than we've taken away, but the pace has lessened. I find myself now thinking of ways to 'use up' things that we have too much of. I think I need to consider having a big clear out of stuff, but this is where my quest to not buy things holds me back, I'm reluctant to get rid of things while I can't buy anything else, like I need to hold on to it in case of emergencies.

Finally my hope of having more time to do other things is not really coming to fruition. I find I'm still spending a lot of my time absentmindedly browsing online shops. The fact that I'm not going to buy anything does not seem to have gotten rid of this bad habit, and the hours of 7-9 of a weekday evening are still predominantly spent in front of the TV half watching something, half looking at online stores. It really seems to be an addiction, but hopefully one this year will help me quit. 

Proof of Stuff

So I'm (nearly) a week down in my quest to stop buying things. I'll be honest it's not been that hard, I've been crazily busy with year 11 exams, parents morning, arranging for the sixth form to go see the Archbishop of York and helping out and also watching the school production of Les Mis. These things have allowed very little time for shopping either physically or online, though the temptation is nearly always there on my phone. I've become more aware of how often the companies I regularly purchase from feel the need to email me, and I can't deny a 30% off voucher that appeared in my inbox for one of my favourite vintage dress websites wasn't a serious temptation...

Today I thought I'd provide visual evidence of my vast quantity of things. Many people have commented since I put my first blog entry on Facebook that they too feel they have too much stuff, so it would be interesting to compare if my 'too much' registers as 'too much' for others. Of course it doesn't actually matter, if it's too much for me then it's time to do something, but it is apparent that I am not alone in my hoarding tendencies.

Let's start with books, my first "collection". A tendency I have most definitely inherited from my mother, and who most certainly has significantly more books from me. She's also a much bigger reader than I am, which is a shame as I love to read. Since retirement she devours books at a terrifying rate, whereas I, post pregnancy, struggle to make it through a book a month. Working full time and having a 1 year old is not conducive to getting a lot read, but that is one think I'm hoping my lack of purchases will help with. Hopefully ridding myself of that activity will allow more time for others. The above photo shows my collection of Sunday school prize books, you know the sort, mostly from between 1880-1920 with noble Christian stories of heroic individuals or heartwarming tales of school friends at fictional but character building English public schools. I've collected them for years, mostly for aesthetic reasons, they look great and have beautiful bindings.

Next my collection of Folio Society books, beautiful, expensive, and arranged in rainbow colour order. I went through a phase around 6 years ago of being a member of the society and buying loads of them, both new and second hand. Like many of my 'collections' my husband Chris started the obsession by buying me my first one. I have to admit I haven't bought any for some time, partly because I realised they were costing me a fortune, but also because I reached a stage were I owned most of the ones that interested me.

Next the non-fiction selection, too big to fit in one photo. These books are located in my study, a room I rarely get to go in at the moment, and which is mostly full of baby clothes and toys that Arthur has outgrown and which need to be taken to the charity shop.

The non-fiction books are mostly made up of medieval history books, throw backs from my masters degree, now simply a hobby. I love medieval history and have vague hopes of being able to study it again properly in the future, but mostly I just buy medieval history books and look wistfully at them hoping for an opportunity to read them again. There are also a fair few books about religion, mythology, local history and feminism in here, other vague interests. I used to pride myself on having all my books catalogued online and organised in alphabetised sections. We had major building work done on the house in the months before I had Arthur, literally only finishing a couple of weeks before he was born. My books lived in boxes for months, and had to be shoved back on the shelves in the big clean up. I've yet to get around to rearranging the books into their proper sections.

This is the cookbook collection, with some biographies at the bottom. Stacked on top are mostly book club books that need to go to the charity shop. The cookbooks also signify an area of my life I don't have much time for any more. Most of the cooking that goes on in this house is glorified heating, and baking is something I rarely get around to.

Next comes the fiction collection, stored in the bedroom. This is at least alphabetised, though as you can see it needs some attention and new additions have just been stacked on top.

There are so many books that need to be read here. So many books that need more attention!

Next jewellery, and believe it or not there is an ornate necklace holder somewhere buried underneath this mountain of stuff. They are very tangled and disorganised and I can't really find any other way of storing them, the sheer volume mean I often can't find what I'm looking for. But that's not the full collection.

Here are the earrings, with more necklaces adorning them.

There's also a box full of bracelets and other bits, and if that wasn't enough....

...an additional small chest full of stuff. It's an insane amount of jewellery, collected up over the last 20 odd years. Some are sentimental, some are tat from China, there is a vast variety of styles and sources. Oh and I'm forgetting...

... the brooch collection! Perhaps the best displayed but ultimately more brooches than one human being really needs.

 Marmite earrings? I got them, along with owls, octopi (octopuses?) foxes, castles, the Hindu Om symbol..

.. frogs, santas, the star of David, scrabble tiles, jigsaw pieces, Totoro, fish in plastic bags... you get the idea!

Finally my newest and principle vice, dresses! At some point over the last 3 years I became obsessed with dresses, owning more and more and more mostly in a vintage style and mostly from Lindy Bop. I found I could wear them while I was pregnant as full the full skirts allowed for my belly. I don't really know why or exactly when I felt that needed to own so many dresses. I wear them most days to teach, but at times I have owned close to 100. I have thinned the heard recently because a fair few of them were too big for me after I recently lost some weight. The current tally is probably in the 70's, but I've not counted. There are is also a pretty vast selection of skirts in the next wardrobe, and a pretty massive range of tops, jumpers, cardigans, camis, etc. etc. I have a dress for every occasion, so in theory no one new dresses will enter this wardrobe for 12 months. The only real issue I can see here is potential for further weight loss, or gain. If I gain weight I have the dresses that I outgrew are in storage in the loft, if I loose more, well I may have to wear some baggy dresses!

So there it all is, all my shame. In theory this is the most stuff I should ever own, but we'll see how successful I am...
 

In the beginning...

Hi, my name is Liz. I'm a philosophy teacher, mother and human being living in the north west of England with my husband, 1 year old son and 2 cats. I also own all the things.

Seriously like all of them, they all belong to me. I have so much stuff I just don't know what to do with it all. Books? Literally thousands. Clothes? By the tonne. Jewellery? Shed loads, in all sorts of weird and wonderful shapes and sizes. Our modest 4 bedroom terrace is filled with stuff, stuff is everywhere.

So I've decided to stop buying stuff. I'm not going all Marie Kondo and chucking it all out because, frankly, I really like my stuff and I don't necessarily want to get rid of it. I'm not trying to save money, because staying within my means has never been a major issue for me, I love charity shops, sales and car boots and I earn a reasonable wage. I'm just not going to buy more things, for a year.

Why I'm stopping buying things

Well other than the aforementioned lack of space, I'm starting to realise that the purchasing of items is taking over my life. I used to read and work with my evenings, now I browse cheap Chinese selling apps looking for bargains or bid on things on Ebay. I have a wonderful son, who spends a lot of his Saturdays trawling around shops while mummy browses. Admittedly he often benefits from my purchases, but he also has enough books, toys and clothes to sink a ship so will hardly suffer from my decision. I spend a good portion of my extremely limited free time returning things to the post office that I've bought online, packaging up dresses I've sold, bought or swapped to take to the post office, or picking up missed parcels from the post office. Stuff is not just taking over my house, it's occupying my thoughts, my time, my existence! I need to readjust, I need to stop buying things.

The Rules

1. From the 5th March 2018 I will no longer purchase non-consumable items for my self. Obviously consumables such as food, cosmetics, toiletries etc. are exempt because, ya know, I gots to survive!

2. Gifts are allowed, as in I can buy gifts for others and if people choose to they can buy me things too. Social niceties still have to be observed! All this needs to be within reason though, I don't want to replace buying stuff for me with buying stuff for others. Also I was gifted an Etsy giftcard for my birthday so I am allowed to spend this as it is technically a gift, plus it seems rather rude to not spend it because I've decided to do this stupid challenge. Social niceties remember!

3. Essentials can be replaced if broken/lost/stolen. So while my laptop say is not a consumable, I really need one and if it breaks I need to be able to replace it

I don't think I need any more rules, but I'm willing to be flexible and add or adapt these as I go along. Also I really do think I will slip up over the course of 12 months, it's a long time and I have a really bad habit, but I'm not going to beat myself up over this or loose sight of what I'm trying to do.

Steps to help me stay on the wagon

I've just deleted all my selling apps from my phone and unfollowed various selling and swapping pages and groups from Facebook. I've also bought myself a few things that I may need or want over the next few months to try and keep me happy.

So here goes, me trying to manage without purchasing stuff is officially underway and no longer just something I've told my husband I should try and do.