The Green Parent
Raising kids with conscience
Blog
Nov 01 2008
Buy Nothing Month starts tomorrow
Tomorrow we begin our Buy Nothing Month (BNM), an extension of Buy Nothing Day, which takes place on 29th November. We will not spend any money for a whole month. We had a BNM last year and it was rather successful – a chance for us to explore our relationship with money and really assess our needs and wants. Last year we experienced more time together as a family and a greater sense of resourcefulness, especially in the kitchen. Given that my biggest financial indulgence is good quality organic food I am hoping to be able to take this resourcefulness a step further this year. So what are we going to do without?
• No food purchases apart from our standard family-sized box of vegetables and fruit that is delivered every week. We will use the last harvest from the veggie garden and clear our storecupboard items. I will get more creative with food that we have foraged for and will probably spend a good proportion of my time in the kitchen!
• No newspapers, books, magazines, or similar items. We will make our own family news for a month, concentrate on reading our accumulated library rather than buying more and spend time trusting innate knowledge rather than looking to books, etc for answers.
• No clothes purchases – easy one really since we only shop in charity shops and with ethical clothing brands periodically. However, I will make more of an effort this month to repair clothes rather than giving them away or textile recycling them. These will become last resort options.
• No trips out that cost money – this will be quite tricky as part of our home education schedule is a day out every couple of weeks or so, either up to London to the museums or to local historic sites. I expect to use the bikes to explore deeper into our local area instead.
• No gift purchases – there are a couple of friends’ and family members’ birthdays coming up in November. We will be making presents and cards for all the lucky gift recipients!
There are probably other areas too – I shall cover those as they come up during our month of freedom! Hope you enjoy reading about our experiences during the coming weeks…
And if you fancy joining us, I’d be delighted to hear from you.
Welcome to the new blog from the Green Parent office. Here we'll talk about what's going on in the small and quite leafy headquarters of the UK's leading green lifestyle magazine. We'll share news that interests us and talk about green issues and natural parenting. We'll share advice and information from our own experiences of living a green lifestyle. And we'll even tell you what we are reading, eating, drinking and thinking. Hope you get plenty of food for thought here.
The Green Parent is the UK's leading green lifestyle and natural parenting magazine. A truly inspiring read, TGP is like nothing else on the newsstand, with insightful intelligent journalism covering topics from babywearing and attachment parenting to home-education and alternative medicine. Each issue features regular columns on Organic Gardening, Seasonal Food and Drink, Green Travel, Ethical Fashion and lots more.
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