thinking about september...

no-dryer july. no-tv august. it's time to start thinking about the month of september, i guess.

i was doing a bit of reading today, hoping to come up with something. i started wondering if i could do an entire month of no shopping. kind of like the san francisco compact , a project in which a group of people resolved to stay off of the "consumer grid" for one year. they made exceptions for things like food, medicine and other necessities, but for the most part bought nothing new for the entire duration of the project.

what would something like that mean for me? an obvious start would be no clothes shopping for lucy or myself. no trips to starbucks or peets. no new-product shopping over at the elephant pharmacy, which is quickly becoming one of the places i LOVE to spend money. but beyond those few places, i can't really see how much "not shopping" would affect me. i almost don't think that it'd be that much of a struggle. which is probably, as jeremy pointed out, why i should do it. i might not realize just how much i really do shop... a diaper here, new toy there. something on the clearance rack at one of my favorite stores. i know it adds up. it has to.

another idea i had was to buy only "whole" foods... meat, cheese, milk, fruits, veggies, flour, etc. we really do pretty much do this anyway, and have for weeks now been buying only local produce. but i'm sure that i could push the envelope further. no matter how healthy i think we eat, i can still certainly be found with stuff like chips, salsa, fishsticks, canned beans, premade pizza dough, etc in my cart. the major benefit to this would be eating through all of the food in our freezer and pantry, plus learning how to cook a few new things from scratch. i really enjoy making bread and have been wanting to make my own butter. this would be a perfect opportunity to improve my (kinda lackluster) cooking skills.

i thought about combining the two of these ideas into one, but to do so seems more that a little daunting. slow & steady wins the race right? of course it's not a race, but a lifestyle change. still, too much to fast and next thing you know i'll be kicked back on the couch, watching shop-at-home network while the dryer runs nonstop, hollering at lucy to bring me another individually wrapped snack pack. yikes.