Here's the breakdown:
- $75 school shoes
- $95 school uniform purchases from school shop and Big W
- $45 quilting fabrics (7 pieces from ebay and a length of ribbon from spotlight)
- $50 quilting bag (from Kirrily at Nice Knickers on ozebaby)
- $14.88 Organic t-shirt for me from Big W
- $17.86 Organic t-shirt for DH from Big W
- $20 Mr Men T-shirt for my Dad's b'day pressie Big W
- $20 Two egg cup & spoon sets from small local shop for b'day pressies for the boys next door
- $17.50 taggie blanket for gift for baby of my ex-babysitter, from Loopy Loo ozebaby
Total - $355.24
Well, no so bad for a former consumerholic I guess, and a better total than last month. Still, I reckon I could do better. I really didn't need the quilting bag (although I love it to death and I'm happy I bought it) and I'm bummed about my spend-up at Big W - I really could have thought of a better pressie for Dad than a Mr Men t-shirt and we really didn't those need those organic t-shirts I bought either. Curse that impulsive spending!!!
Well, in a bid to challenge myself further and totally shackle my spending from here on in, my March challenge is.......drum roll........another drum roll......I will not buy anything made in China. That's right. Nothing made in China. Not only for March but for THE REST OF THE YEAR!!! Gasp!!!! Can I do it??? I'm not sure but I sure as hell am going to give it a red hot go.
By the way, in case you were wondering how I went with the February challenge (no tissues) I was cruising with no problems til I got a head cold, then used all my hanky stash up in one day and lacked the energy to make new ones, so regressed to tissues. Oops. Am back on the wagon now though as my cold has disappeared. Yay!!
5 comments:
LOL You did good, by the sounds of it, it's a huge improvement on your usual spending ways. You've gone over the list, you know where you've gone wrong (well not gone wrong, but ykwim). This month your conscience will kick in if you go to splurge on non-neccessities... you will remember the guilt and think twice LOL
I think that's the key with challenging ourselves to change our ways.... we are now confessing our bugger ups, not just ignoring them. And that makes us more aware, and more determined to try harder.
The tissues.... I'm not one to buy tissues, never have been. But when a head cold with one of the kids or myself gets beyond a joke, sometimes you have to give in a buy the rotton things. My Pop used to use chopped up sheets/pillowcases... anything that could be used for one.
Cinders is right, you can't change what you don't acknowledge.
Have fun with the new Challenge. I think you'll be surprised how much stuff is made in China.
Can I ask what made you choose China? There are lots of potential reasons, LOL, and I thought there might be other countries you may wish to avoid too. Just curious.
Thanks guys!! Tanja - I chose china as I knew it would SERIOUSLY curtail my spending and I wanted to see whether it was possible. Also, I'm against the whole mass production, quantity not quality thing and wanted to see whether it was possible to buy most things made locally (I'm now finding out that the answer to this is probably - no). At the moment I'm trying to find toddler's shoes which aren't made in China - tricky!!!
Re: toddler shoes. I know someone whose 18 month old runs around in handcrafted leather shoes. Would you consider those kind of shoes for DD2? I also know someone who has patterns, leather, and knows how to make them. Handy, huh?
Toddler shoe crisis averted!!! I took another look at our piles of hand me down clothes in our garage and found a bag of shoes I'd kept from DD1 - woohoo!! So I don't need to buy any after all! Hey Tanja do you mean those soft toddler shoes? I've got a pair of those which I bought from ozebaby but it gets so cold here in winter that I thought she'd need some boots. Gee imagine being able to make your own shoes!! How handy would that be!!!!
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