Some people who take a "buy nothing" pledge for some fixed period of time exempt a narrow class of expenditures: groceries, gas for basic transportation, and other non-frivolous budget items. I decided it would be more fun to make mine a true "buy nothing" week, by filling my tank with gas and stocking up on groceries ahead of time. As I needed the cooperation of a certain family member, who has been using my credit card while he is (as they say) "between jobs," a more challenging buying ban would amp up the excitement of this adventure in frugality.
So last week, day after day went by when both of us charged nothing on credit cards. How lovely to check my balance online and NOT seeing it growing by leaps and bounds!
The most fun for me was using up food in the pantry and fridge that I had long forgotten: a large container of yogurt left over from company who had stayed with me back in November (still perfectly good); dried fruit I unearthed on a shelf that was VERY dried out now, but still tasty. Yum! Oh, and that huge bag of potatoes I had purchased even though I only needed two potatoes, but it's SO much cheaper to buy five pounds at a time. I do love me a baked potato dripping with butter! Here I had the joy not only of frugality but of responsible environmental stewardship, since food waste in prosperous countries is a leading cause of global climate change.
Hooray for me!
Alas, partway through the week, my son's car wouldn't start. Double-alas, it turned out not to need just a new battery, but some kind of hideous repair that ended up costing $1700. In one fell swoop, all my savings from proudly using up past-sell-date yogurt and rock-hard dried fruit were dwarfed into insignificance.
WAHHHH!
Oh, well. If I hadn't done the buy-nothing week, the car repair would still have cost $1700, plus we might have spent $200 - or $300 - or more on who-knows-what: all those pesky little expenses that somehow add up to a whopping total. I'm still glad I used up some potatoes before they sprouted into grotesque formations and enjoyed a nutritious yogurt-and-fruit breakfast every morning.
I can't say my finances feel appreciably more under control, but at least I did SOMETHING. Doing something, I firmly believe, is almost always better than doing nothing. At least half a dozen famous (and not-so-famous) people are quoted as saying, "Don't do nothing because you can't do everything."
For me, buying nothing counted as doing something. And in February I'll plan another week of buying nothing again.
No comments:
Post a Comment