Thursday, December 27, 2012

My big challenge for 2013



Ok, so we in our little family have given ourselve a huge challenge for 2013. The challenge combines many small areas of our life, and we hope it can help us to complete our life a little more, to make our living more sustainable and maybe even making us more self-sufficient.

We are having a not-buying-it year! To not buy anything new for a hwole year is scaring, and inspiring. Because, what do we actually need? That is what I am going to find out during 2013. I do not belive that I need a new pair of jeans, when I already have five at home. Or that my kids needs a new skylander to their playstation game. There is a difference between needing an wanting, and that is the thing I need to teach both my kids and myself.

But this is not your ordinary not-buying-it year. Oh noo. We already did that back in 2008 (when I was pregnant and only had one kid aging 3, who did not know about wanting things) We are taking it a whole step further.. Here is our plan:

Spending: 
  • Not buying anything new clothes or accessories for the whole year. I think er have enough in our closet already, and I also know that my kids can inheritance from older uncles. If there is an unforseen need there is a second hand shop in the nearby town. I do know that my youngest kid needs a warm overall for outdoors in the kindergarden, but I will shop at home first (looking through all the clothes from his older brother) 
  • Not buying any toys. Not new, not used. I am amazed by how much toys a kid have in todays life. Oh my! I have almost every toy from when I grew up, and I am only 26. My kids toys could fill two huge rooms! I am not kidding. We have agreed to try to make some familyfun, like bowling from old canning jars etc. 
  • Not buying any new furnitures. No problem at all I think. We have been used the local freecycle the last year anyway. 
  • If anything gets broken, try to fix it with glue, sewing etc.


Food and nutrition
  • Plan a menu every week on sundays. Use what we have at home in our pantry, garden, freezer etc first. Plan the rest of the meals on sales from the stores, and only use the over all good deal stores, not the "good deal but overall a steal" stores. 
  • Not eating out on fastfood or resturants. 
  • Dont buy any coffe on the go. 
  • Dont buying any food on the store when out and about just because we are hungry. Bring lunches/food for everyone when leaving home, and if it gets too bad buy an apple.. 
  • Avoid sodas, juices etc. 
  • Avoid candy
  • Avoid sugars in all forms (white flours, pasta, juice etc) This one is a hard one, but we are all agree, and we do want a better life. 
  • For adults: not drinking alkohol. I have no need for this, and my husband is also on board. We had the same thing for 2012, and we only drank beer at two occations, and coffe and bailys on christmas eve.
  • Not buying more tea before it is all empty. Who has over 40 sorts of bagged tea in their pantry anyway, rigth? Oh, and there are som loose tea to, so I need to use up that too. I am way to glad in trying out new teas..

Family time
  • Mom is spoiled with a class of mindfullness and meditation. 
  • Dad has his usually man-day. 
  • Datenight wil be a movie on webtv or some of the hundreds we have in the basement. Vegetables and dip. I also gave my husband twelve dates (one each month) for christmas this year, because we need to spend some time together alone, away from the house. Just us. 
  • The kids wants to make gifts for birthays, so it wil be exiting to see what we can do there. 
  • We also want to do more activities as a family. Go fishing, finding berries and mushrooms, go hiking, klimb the mountains, make a bondfire etc. Do instead of buing.  

Self-sufficiency
  • Get some chickens for fresh eggs. We need to build a coop and run. 
  • Compost! Building a composter must be done first
  • Grow a garden. I have a garden, but it is small, I want to dig up the whole feeld here. There are a deer family who have their walk rigth where I want to make my garden, so we need to look at opportunities here in the spring. Already started planning what kind of herbs and vegetables I want to grow. 
  • Go fishing and get crabs and shells, and also try to pick and dry kelp. 
  • Use natures bounty. Pick berries, the green weeds like nettles, birch and dandilion. 
  • Teach myself to canning. I have a good place in the basement for pickles and jams. 
  • I also want to learn to make kombucha, kefir and sourdough

Economy
  • Cut ut all subscriptions we dont need. At this time this post counts one, so not big of a deal here now. 
  • Pay down the rest of the debt. 
  • Start saving for our dreamhome.  
Environment
  • Get better to turn things off when leaving a room, and not using the stand by. 
  • Not using the dryer. Instead get another drying rack. 
  • Dont use the car that often. Since we live in the middle of no-where this one is kind of hard, but we could take our bikes to the store, dobble fun - work out as well.
We would probably get more on our list as the year comes to us, but at this moment, this is the list. I am so looking forward to stick to it.
Are you in on any of theese, or do you even have your own? I want to know!


This post is shared on the Simple Lives Thursday

6 comments:

  1. Sounds wonderful! I look forward to tracking your journey!
    http://amysreallife.wordpress.com

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  2. Just found you on Simple Lives Thursday and we've got similar ideas for 2013! Very inspired by this:)

    Always,
    Eliza
    http://www.elizakprints.blogspot.com

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    1. Thanks for the comment. I hope we can follow our progress together during this year then :)

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  3. We just posted about a No Spend January, so I am impressed at your goal for a year! May the Lord greatly bless your efforts! Looking forward to reading about your journey.

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    1. How exiting that others also embark on such a mission! I think it is quite fun this hwole project. I love how I can twist my brains out to get new solutions instead of buying new stuff!

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