Honestly! How did i spend $139 buying nothing

1st week going well!

Well this not buying thing is going well. I have become more productive in the making things department. Perhaps making a new thing from old things is substituting for the rush of buying new things. oh well what ever is floating the boat!

Over the long weekend I sewed that dress that I bought the material for in Edmonton when I was home. It turned out ODD. not odd enough to scrap it, but odd. I meditating on how to fix it.

I also sewed the curtains for my closet, and made my mom a birthday gift.

I fused plastic bags together to create a farmers market bag for her, and made her a mini sock creature named Tad.
I even avoided using postage (not actually in the rules, but still not bad) by sending it home with my parents’ neighbours who stayed at my house Tuesday night. Yay free door-to-door courier. They joined me for dinner on Tuesday and stayed overnight. I was able to buy dinner making supplies from the local little grocery and butcher, which fits the plan well. We had kabobs, grilled veggies and salad, with fruit and yoghurt for dessert. I find that I am already eating less crap. I have made soup from scratch, have been buying almost exclusively organic, and am realising how often I was not realty eating well. I still have a small reserve of crap in the house, which is a bit tempting, but I remind myself that I have 12 months to go and perhaps the crap will be better appreciated later in the process. I have also been more motivated to make “things”. I think that this may just be honeymoon phase of the process but right now all I want to do is sew,cook, crochet, and build. I am getting over a round of strep throat right now, so I was home sick yesterday. (I did buy antibiotics) I don’t have TV at my house so the day of sick was happily taken up by naps and crochet. I am mostly done a very cute caplet inspired by my stitch and bitch-Happy Hooker book. It is made from lovely fuzzy yarn I found at Value Village right before the buy freeze started. Not sure if it is a gift or a keeper yet.

So far this week I have bough $45 in groceries, $20 of which was from local producers from the farmers market: bread, apples, tomatoes, beans, summer squash. They are more expensive than grocery produce, but taste better by a long shot. I had put $200 away to buy my neighbours couch from them, but found one at value village for $44.99, which better suited my room. It is a green chaise style: Very funky. I was divided about if I could buy it, but since I have already set the $ aside, and it was recycling, and it saved me $155 I did buy it. Is this rationalization? To be Honest I did not NEED the couch. It was a Want. It is nice to have my bedroom fully furnished. I have enjoyed a couple of cat naps on it in the sun, with the cat. Blah blah blah.
Expenses to date
$45- groceries
$35- sewing notions for pattern (transfer paper for the bloody pleats!!!! Pins, and my annual sew club membership-50% off until dec 2009)
$45- couch
$12- antibiotics
$2- hydrogen peroxide- I have learned that it is a good household cleaner, and I am out of the stuff I usually use.
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$139.

This still seems like a lot. If I remove the non-regular expenses though $45 ain’t bad. I do need to make sure that the non-regulars remain non-regular though!!!