A (Wo)Man Is Known By The Company (S)He Keeps: Not Buying New Update

What's the main thing I've learned in the last 5 months of not buying new?

That our friends, family, customers and community are AWESOME.*

*I probably did know this anyway but this has consolidated it!

Once we rid ourselves of the 'shame' of saying we weren't buying new and happily asking for and accepting things from other people our lives have been transformed and people are regularly offering us stuff to borrow or things they're getting rid of.

The kids had their traditional birthday growth spurt, but thanks to friends and our local Freecycle page and even some customers, both kids have full summer wardrobes of preloved clothes, underwear, swimsuits and even backpacks and shoes.

We have also been given a lawnmower, books, plants, a projector so we can do garden cinema, a whole stack of toys and my father-in-law even brought us some jam and coffee he picked up from Olio.

We do give as well as receive, we've swapped books, donated some of my clothes, Mr E's jumpers and coats and some of our toys and books to pay it forward and I passed the smaller clothes to a friend for her little boy. Good karma!

We did do some spending though! 🙈😬

April is often a big spend month at Team Ecologico HQ: 2 birthdays and Easter all within 2 weeks.

Thankfully we run the party kit so partyware was covered and when Squishy asked for a dino theme I nabbed some decorations from Facebook and a preloved dino shirt for him to wear. I was also kindly gifted a dino dress for myself secondhand which was a lovely bonus.

There WAS a spend after our trusty cake tin needed to be replaced as an emergency! Hole-y bottom would you believe! 😂

I baked Squishy's cake and we had a few gifts (none of which were bought during this challenge but most of which were secondhand anyway). His friend did a doorstep drop of a book from his collection and a handmade card and family did a Zoom call and we watched a film (Chitty Chitty Bang Bang...classic😉).

We had a party in the garden, took some photos, played pass the parcel with a reusable set, some other party games and dancing and of course CAKE!!!

Mr E didn't ask for a birthday theme fortunately but he did get a birthday party and a caravan stay, I bought him a vintage secondhand football shirt I won on a well-known auction site and a book he wanted from worldofbooks.com, which sells secondhand books, as well as some delicious vegan chocolate from Gnaw (which he shared!).

So as well as not buying new, I feel more connected to people around me: I'm having to rely more on my network and sharing stuff with them is great.

So yeah we did buy a cake mould and maybe I should be disappointed but I actually feel good about our 5th month of Not Buying New because it reminded me how lucky I am! Almost half way😬

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