January Blues: Our Not Buying New Year Update
What did you get for Christmas?
Luckily my family tend to buy us books, practical products and food-y bits so in January we can hibernate and enjoy our gifts without spending a penny.
The downside is January sales; we used to have an annual girls' sales shopping day, I'd buy all my paper, cards, lots of clothes and 'bargains' for the whole year. I'd feel organised, satisfied and usually pretty smug.
Now obviously this year is a little different anyway thanks to lockdown restrictions, but I used the opportunity of no shops being open to unsubscribe from all of the companies bombarding me on an almost daily basis with sales and offers. It is so liberating to a) not be hounded by persuasive marketing b) reduce the carbon footprint of my inbox.
Reusable wrapping, our old tree and decorations and Christmas jumpers and pjs that were sized up have all been lovingly boxed away for next year and this year's Christmas cards have been cut up for next Christmas' tags and some scrap for the kids to do crafts.
This month we did pick up some preloved toys from Facebook sites including a Baby Bjorn to put away for Red and a fair trade Bishopston Trading Company Doll for Squishy and I used my Christmas money from my parents to get a preloved Popsy dress from their dedicated preloved Facebook group, instead of a spa day, which is what I'd usually spend the money on.
As we are locked down our usual trips out were replaced with junk modelling, heuristic play, homebaking, games and films so we didn't buy any extra resources or spend any money on those.
Mr Ecologico and I gifted each other the Gift of Time for Christmas so we've enjoyed a vegan bake off, board game nights and a quiz night instead of going out or buying stuff (I was totally the Bake Off winner with my banana peanut butter muffins but apparently it's about the taking part not the winning!)
A pretty successful not buying new month all in all.
Tune in next month for a not buying new Valentine's Day! ❤️🌹😁
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