October rundown

Non-consumables

Bought:

Total cost: £365.40

Digital kitchen scales £5.99 (old ones broke about 6 months ago, have made do without them but it's a nuisance)

Winter coats for girls total £41.98 (second hand and essential)

Fabric for school decorations £3

Halloween costumes for girls total £4.49 (second hand)

Gifts for stepdad ££ actually didn't keep track, approx £15-20 (all consumable gifts which I felt good about buying)

Wild swimming gloves £29.99 (These kind of are essential and kind of not essential. I swim through the winter, and when it's very cold I wear socks and gloves, it's very difficult and uncomfortable if you don't *actually it's still difficult and uncomfortable even so!* and both my socks and gloves wore out last year and needed to be replaced. I wanted to go with better quality this time and found a small business making them from a, I suspect slightly greenwashed, kind of neoprene which is supposed to be both more sustainably produced and also longer lasting. Anyway, I decided these were necessary, and hopefully won't be something I need to replace again for several years)

Two kittens (Not 'Things' but obviously not consumables either, and they still cost money. £150)

4 saucers, 5 glasses (smashed one as soon as I got home. Charity shop, £4.95. Saucers are for kittens to have their food from, glasses are for me to drink ginger wine, sherry and brandy from, which I enjoy)

Fabric for my Halloween costume £8

Slippers for myself & two daughters, two bras M&S £97 (okay things have gone a little off the rails. But all kind of essential purchases. Yes, I could have probably bought these things cheaper secondhand, but some things are a waste of money secondhand and I do also like to support the high street, if not fast fashion. I am confident that the things I bought for myself will last a few years at least, and the girls' slippers should last long enough to pass on to someone else)

Got for free, gifted or borrowed:

2x single mattress pads (Freecycle)

10x jam jars (Freecyle)

Stand mixer (this might have been end of September, but it was such a score I'll include it- Freecycle)

Ingredients to make Halloween costume for myself (borrowed)

Faux fur coat (gifted)

Corduroy pinafore dress (gifted)

Pair of patterned leggings (gifted)

Face paint for the girls for Halloween (gifted)

Bag of moringa leaves (gifted - Although this is a consumable, herbal medicines/supplements are not something I usually feel like I have money for and would probably not have bought while I am trying to do low-spend)

Roll of bubblewrap for my Halloween costume (gifted)

Bottle of wine (consumable but I include this as a freecycler bought it for us to say thank you which was such a lovely & kind gesture)

Low-spend progress

 Low spend indeed - the amount I have spent this month on 'non-essentials' has leapt up to a whopping £260.40, although this has included adding two new feline family members. It's quite amazing to me how much it all adds up even when you are trying to be conscious about how you are spending money, and it makes me wonder how much I've actually been spending on months when I have been a bit more frivolous than this.

It all serves to highlight how much there is to buy, and how deeply ingrained into my behaviour buying more stuff is. It's not the end of the month either, although frankly the budget for non-essentials is completely used up so there can't really be any more unnecessary purchasing from now on. 

Especially with the addition of two more cats, our financial situation is pretty stark. We have enough money for all of our needs. We have enough money for new clothes and shoes when the girls need them. In theory we have enough money to put a little by every month for just in case. And beyond that, we do not have a lot spare and need to count every penny. 

And I can't help but feel that this is the way it should be. At what point in history did we decide that we no longer wanted to live like peasants, but instead like lords? I am shocked again and again by the expectations of those around me, and occasionally even by my own. So many of the people we know are on substantial salaries, higher than ours, and are still feeling like it's not enough and they need to find ways to make more money. My experience is that your wants and needs expand to fill whatever budget you set out. Certainly that was the case only a year ago when Will was on a higher salary and I was also working. We had a great deal of money and yet still never saved. We also didn't do essential work on the house, pay of our debts, or really put the money anywhere of long-term value. So I find it hard to see any point in trying to make more money now to put us in a 'more comfortable position'. And I would say that it's just me and I'm not particularly responsible, but I see it in so many people I know. There will always be something to spend your money on. 

No buy - Low buy thoughts

I'm going to try and keep a track of every non-consumable item that comes into my home, either because I have bought it or acquired it for free. 

I have been giving thought into doing a 'no buy' challenge, and specifically a 'no buy year' as a way of really cementing good habits and trying to move on from negative habits and mind sets. And this isn't to say that I am committing now to not doing something like this, however I did see a youtube video earlier (note to self - stop watching youtube) where a lady was discussing her no buy year to date, challenges, failures, and was beginning to wonder at the arbitrariness of it, because what happens at the end of the year? Do you give yourself a big pat for completing the challenge and go back to your old ways? Have you learned anything? Are you going to never buy anything non-essential again, ever? Are you now a completely conscious consumer? These are good questions, because I like a challenge and a game as much as anybody, but what I would really like to do is change the way I feel about buying things and it's hard to know if this is something that would happen by itself if you go for a long period without spending money willy-nilly, or if you psyche is just biding it's time, and once the challenge is over all it will take is for you to have an emotion day and convince yourself that buying something as a little pick me up is just the thing. That was a long sentence. 

I think it's still possible that I may want to attempt a no buy challenge, perhaps with the new year, but what I want is to be very resolved about what I am going in for, and what I hope to gain from it. But I think a good way to make any positive change is jus to start, so as of now - or actually a few days ago - I am going to try to be a conscious consumer, and as much as is comfortable I am only intending to buy essentials. 

And a good way to reflect on this brings me back to my first sentence, which is to say that I am going to keep a detailed record of everything that I buy. I think it may also be a helpful thing to record when I want to buy things to see if I can get to the bottom of what the real desire is there. We are one week into October and I have already spent a staggering £75.46 on non-consumables, which honestly came as quite a surprise to me. I don't know if any of these purchases could realistically have been avoided, I'm certainly trying to convince myself that they were all essential. It'll be an interesting experiment to see if my criteria for what is or isn't essential changes over the coming weeks and months. In the mean time I will do my best to keep a true log, and this will be published at the end of each month.

With that it's time for bed. Another thing I'd like to get better at not frittering away is my time. 

Being truthful

 About the amount of times I have considered buying something today.

** disclaimer, I was being talked at non-stop while I was writing this entry so it is unlikely to make much sense. 

I was in town this morning picking up a couple of bits of food, some fabric for the school disco, a halloween costume for my oldest (second hand) and a birthday present for my stepdad. I have already resolved this month not to buy anything I don't need because we have been so short on money. Despite that, in town today I briefly considered buying:

-A coffee

-An orange scarf in m&s which I stopped and stroked for about a minute, almost checked the price label.

-Socks - walking past primark I wondered if I should stock up on sports socks, despite having a drawer full of socks

-General charity shop tat - almost browsed all of the lovely autumn shoes and bags they had out when I was in there to buy a halloween costume

-An orange polo neck jumper in another charity shop - did check the price: £3.50

I didn't buy any of the above, and only bought what I was actually in town for, with the exception of nutritional yeast and sundried tomatoes in the grape tree, which I hadn't planned to buy, but which we had run out of and will use. 

It all gets me to thinking that we are conditioned literally from birth to want and crave Things, and to be shopping addicts. I see it now that I have my own girls, especially when they have their own money to spend, they are struck by a sort of mania and want to just spend their money and get more things, and what they actually buy is only a detail. 

We are sold again and again the idea that the things we buy and own will somehow improve our character, and the way people perceive us. Although the latter might be true, it isn't terribly important, and the former is an outright lie. 

I have been wondering about doing some kind of 'no buy' challenge. I have tried to do no spend or low spend in the past but the motivation behind that is saving money. I would like to save money, however I think that is not as real to me, and perhaps therefore less incentivising, than the desire to escape this mass over-consumerism that has not only shaped (deformed?) my life but which is also of course destroying the planet and bringing misery to all. 

It seems like a good time to think about it now as we are coming up to the end of the year. Perhaps it time to start decided what I would like to be doing with my money time and energy in the year to come.