Buy Nothing June

After a long hiatus from this blog, I am back to talk about Buy Nothing June.

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While both my husband and I are certainly guilty of often buying things we don't really need, we declared this consumer-free month to combat our daughter's growing obsession with obtaining more and more things. She has hardly enjoyed the wonderful gifts she received recently for her birthday because she is already looking ahead to what she can buy next. We're not sure how this happened. Skip and I are not big "thing" people. Our spending downfall is experiences--travel and entertainment. Vacations and concerts and theater eat up a lot of money that might be better spent elsewhere. But we have a really good time. :)

We have a great house, but our home is furnished--not decorated. My engagement ring is the only valuable piece of jewelry we own. I have a $10 cell phone. If someone broke in to our house to steal something, they'd be so disappointed by our ten-year-old stereo and square-box 36-inch television, they'd probably spray paint something out of spite. I regularly haul things we aren't using or have outgrown to Goodwill, so we're just not sure where our child got this fixation with stuff and more stuff.

Since she's still too young to send off on a mission trip to Appalachia or Mexico (a great way to gain a little perspective), we thought we'd just put an end to the consuming. She actually cried when I told her. I have a nine-year-old who had a breakdown at the thought of not being able to buy anything for a month. Let's hear it for my parenting skills.

We've told her at the end of the month, she can decide where we will donate the money we have saved by curtailing our spending habits. I hope this month is effective. Otherwise, we may have to send her to the convent. Do they take pre-teen Presbyterians?