5. The Compact

I ran an experiment this year called The Compact. This was inspired by a blog called The Non-Consumer Advocate http://thenonconsumeradvocate.com/about-2/. Her premise is not to buy anything new, except of course food, basic toiletries etc. And this is done for a few reason. One is financial- by shopping at thrift stores & garage sales you can still find great items in good condition for a fraction of the price. The second is environmental- by buying a used items, the resources required for production, shipping & marketing are minimized. Since David and I had combined two households and recently gotten married, it was easy to sign up for the experiment. Besides food and health products, I made some exceptions, like souvenirs from abroad. :) Plus all items related to putterpaperie were exempted.

Overall it wasn't that difficult. It made me appreciate all that we have. I was surprised at how long it takes to work through all the travel sized lotions and face washes. It seemed I had a lot of those "gift with purchase" cosmetic items. I would also like to publicly thank mum for her hand-me-downs. My sweater drawer is bursting. There were a few breakdowns, I bought some new items as gifts. And for myself I found out that I have thing for magazines. Aside from my subscriptions (which have now expired) I bought 2 or 3 magazines over the year.

On a side note as I consider myself a recovering packrat, over the last few years I have tried to ensure more Stuff leaves the house than new Stuff coming in. For example this past year, I have been "releasing" books into the "wild" (public places) as a member of bookcrossing.com. The books are either found (by strangers) or tossed but ideally picked up, read and passed on. Some of my books have been "caught" and one book made its way out to the Maritimes.

Anyway back to the compact. The most difficult part was Christmas gifts. Not buying something new out of a store meant I had to be creative. Here is what I did for the family. For mum and dad, they were the first recipients of my first ever knitted scarves. Well mum actually received more of a knitted square but luckily I get a chance to re-do it. For Jennie and MIke, I worked with mum throughout the year to take photos of mum making our favourite recipes. The end result looked great as I had them printed in a photo book (yes new but a Canadian printer). And for David, well he received a bedside table from an antique show in the fall. Overall it was fun but it was also very time consuming. I won't lie, I finished Dad's scarf at 5pm on Christmas Eve!

Mum's purple knitted square vs. normal scarf width!

So will I do the compact for 2011. Yes! Probably a similar version with a few exceptions. Although the exceptions are TBD, they will probably be tied to gifts for others. It is one thing to limit items/gifts for yourself and buy used. However to impose that on others is another thing. Especially if that perfect gift is at the bookstore or on Esty!