Compacting/minimal buying refocus.

[mamabear]

Anyone else feeling driven to pursue compacting again with me?

I'm not sure I'm ready to sit down and exhaustively decide what I will and won't spend money on for the rest of the year. But, I can pretty much say this is what we have planned:

*chickens and fencing and movable tractors/possibly new coop (not "new" new, built from scrap/recycled, just need to do something/move them)

*garden seeds, supplies for starts (gotten as cheaply and creatively as possible)

*oil for floors

*possibly tile for bath surround to replace faulty surround we installed last year

*possible car/van reorganization, but will only result in more cash being freed up if anything

*family vacation sometime this summer (august?) - will probably use economic stimulus check for this

The rest is clothes for the kids (K wants me to make hers! J is fairly easy, just needs jeans and shorts), clothes for me as I shrink (minimal), and possibly a truckload of wood. We are going to try to harvest wood from our land for next year's firewood.

I want to get back to compacting seriously, sewing clothes for K, hanging stuff on clothesline, selling off what we have sitting around (fabric, amps, massage table) and socking the $ away. I have been feeling a bit like a consumer lately - maybe dh's tv purchase and even the tractor have done this, I don't know. Oh, and buying clothes for work, and I just ordered undies for K from Hanna and am ready to faint at the price tag! Mostly we're super thrifty, but all of this added together, plus being on the road a lot for work (even though I get mileage), makes me feel a little ungrounded.

Anyone else ready for a refocus? What are you up to this year?

[waterlily]

We are doing it. All our purchases for the year are planned. I have a list around here somewhere. I haven't gone into stores to browse in ages. It's kinda weird.

[Katie]

I sure am ready for a re-focus.

I went back to work for a short stint (3 months) and while it was an ok paying job, the commute and increased expenses threw my budget into a tailspin. I didn't keep the job, btw. Couldn't resign fast enough. blah.

Let's see....

Even though I'm going into spring, I need a new dryer some time this year. Or repairs of some sort. It dries for like 4 minutes then shuts down.

I have my very first chickens coming in about 4 weeks so they'll need accomodations.

There's more but that'll get it going. lol.

[ThirtySomething]

I'm doing ok this year. Last year's project helped me stop the mindless buying of $1-$5 items that add up over time. I also got most of Smoochies clothes from here and Ebay with the exception of her Winter snow gear. Many were NWT.

We are doing the kid's rooms this year which requires some purchases. I'm looking at Ebay for some things. Other than that, my lofty savings goals are an excellent deterrent.

I've discovered I'm not the best planner in this regard. I need to keep flexibility as much as possible. I guess it is one of those "If it ain't broke..." situations as far as planning goes.

I'll give it some thought. We've made some positive changes over the past year.

[LatteLover]

I am really trying to think more about my purchases. My first big step is not overbuying kid clothes!

[ThirtySomething]

I want to clarify that when I say I'm doing the kid's rooms, it is nothing too fancy. We've just moved them all around and have the need for some new storage things and beds.

I am looking for bed linens for Smoochie too.

[mamabear]

Oh that reminds me, Stacy - I still have bed frames for the kids (may be built from reclaimed lumber at least partly, ie the slats from our broken king sized frame) on the list, as well as underbed storage.

We just did their rooms similarly - moved stuff around, decluttered, had to get a desk for K. That, the tractor, and clothes for work had me feeling like I wasn't compacting or not-buying much for the start of the year. Now that those are out of the way I can clearly see what is left for the year.

I'm the same - I don't feel like the best planner in this area. I always think I am doing fine and "done" with the larger purchases but there's something I'm forgetting about.

I've also really completely stopped the useless small purchases here and there...but for me that was true even before last year. Now I need to dig deeper, peel off another layer of purchases. For me this is clothing, among other things. Especially with a suddenly-caring 9.5 yo girl - who WANTS me to make clothes! - but for example dropping cash on Hanna undies/camisoles, bras, shirts that fit her - she just had a huge growth spurt. So I need to clean up downstairs and get the sewing machine humming, clear out some fabric and sew her up some stuff.

The other is buying less food at the supermarket. I'm working on this, and it's probably a whole other thread, but we're *close* to being able to just buy big bags of oats, beans, rice, and quinoa at the store - oh and a bit of flour here and there, and GF flour supplies a couple times a year - and getting the rest directly from farms/friends or from our own land/animals. That feels really, really good (especially when those bags of flour and beans, at least, are also from local farms!). Oh, I'm forgetting spices, bananas, apples (local but storebought for now), and chocolate and coffee (local company for coffee though).

[LisaC]

I'd like to re-focus as well. Let me come up with a list of my goals and then post them (Probably Thursday or Friday evening since dh will be gone those nights and I will have my evenings free)

[Kerri]

I don't know how much lower we can really go as far as buying anything. We don't buy anything except food, lol. I need to keep decluttering more. We have 10 months to pretty-well get rid of everything before we move to NZ. Nothing we really have was bought new, except our TV after trying for weeks to get one on freecycle and craigslist. So we'll pass it all on.

I still feel cluttered alot, so we need to get more stuff out the door pretty soon. Today I gave away a carseat I cleaned up, and yesterday an Avent breastpump. The next thing we need to do is start using everything up that we have around. Like a bottle of shampoo that I used a little of, but didn't like on my hair. Noone else cares that much, so I need to put it in the shower so it gets used up. That's just one example, there are lots of things like that.

Kerri

[Sandi]

I need the Clif's Notes on compacting. It's been brought up before, but I need to not have to read more than three sentences to grasp it today

I'm foggy.

[3Gs4Me]

I am not up for total compacting but due to our huge drive to get out of consumer debt this year we have been very mindful of our spending.

We have a few planned purchases like lumber for 4 more raised beds, additional insulation for the attic, the materials for regrading and putting drain tile in behind our home, and bringing in a few yds of dirt and buying grass seed for the huge bare spots in our yd where trees were removed. Other than that my only purchases will be clothing for my shrinking body and whatever clothing the rest of the family needs that I can't make or buy at garage sales.

[BlueRoseMama]

Oh my Latte factor flew through the roof when my mom was here. I need to get it under control. And I mean REALLY under control. I feel bad for the things I have spent money on... it is hard to even recant it all at this point. I now know that the stress level was way higher than normal. She has been gone for just over a week, and we are finally back to normal. Eating at home 90% of the time, buying used, etc. These things were much harder with a 5 wk house guest.

Homeschooling is another thing that always makes me want to do and see more. I am trying to get that under control before it is both of them. With Alex home as well next year, things are bound to get claustrophobic before they settle. Lets just hope that I can hold out. Or think of cheap and ecologically sound things to do.

Val

[gypsimama]

I've been thinking about this a lot lately too. We have a huge yearly goal and right now we are about a month behind. I'm sure it'll all work out but I really need to pull back a bit.

We have an upcoming trip to Boston and I want to hit Trader Joe's and stock up but I just don't have the extra cash right now. I'll have a little but not nearly what I would like.

Rob and I have been talking a lot about money, we usually do. He's trying to pick up some extra shifts to send right to our loans. His ability to work extra is the only thing we have right now to boost our income. We had to pay in taxes and we won't get the stimulus money so we need him to work extra for extra money. These loans are going to be gone by the end of this year!!

[waterlily]

Compacting in a nutshell is making a "compact" with yourself about what you will spend money during a time period that you have designated and making those purchases mindfully. It can be with the intention of being more aware of where your money goes, help you to save money by cutting out extra spending you might have been doing, making your purchases "count" ecologically speaking. So you will sit down with your dh ideally, decide on the limits you will make for yourselves, do your best to stick to them for the time period you decided on.

How did I miss this NZ move, Kerri? Wow!

[waterlily]

Something that has really changed for me since I decided to "shop at home" is realizing that I was addicted to new. Not new merchandise perse, just changing things up to stay energetic about life. And a lot of that newness came with a pricetag. The last new thing that cost us a lot of money was deciding to homeschool. What is challenging to me is "staying with" the things we have decided on. I could have decided to homeschool with a dedication to the library and very little money. But the lure of all that curriculum is so great. I am afraid of what I will miss if I don't explore it. But sometimes, I have discovered, the dedication to my goals (frugality) is more important than what I would have missed. Truly, there is always another choice over purchasing. Getting off the "latest and greatest" treadmill has been a difficult but worthwhile change in our lives.

With all the changes at dh's job all I have to think of before purchasing anything new is how that option disappears if he gets re-orged out of a job. It's very sobering to say the least.