The End of NNY!

Summing up our NNY Christmas felt so daunting that I stopped updating NNY less than half way through! Ha.

NNY ends today! We're so glad we did it. Here are some of our take-aways:

1) NNY doesn't necessarily save money. 

This was apparent from the get-go, but it didn't bother us because of the three NNY motivations  (strengthen character, respect the earth, and save money) the money one was the last on the list. As it turned out, it was often MORE expensive to try to find a used item than it would have been to run to the regular store.

I think the biggest NNY money waste was when I ordered an item of clothing on eBay that didn't pan out. I'm such an optimist, though, that it's tough to remember this in the heat of the moment.

2) It's hard to get kids to stick to NNY in their own spending.

The kids were about 40% on board when we started NNY, but somewhere after Christmas we gave up  on NNY lectures and left them to decide what to buy with their own money. Over half the time, it was junk food, so there is that :-)

3) Christmas was great.

Our kids are still young, and we've always tried to do simple Christmas, but NNY made Christmas even better. The kids were VERY EXCITED about the gifts that they made for each other, and strangely enough, the recipient was just as excited. Lu still sleeps with "snakey", the very long unstuffed snake that Scott made for her. Our "something to wear/something to read/something to play with" was pretty easy to do. I made everyone PJ pants (that doubled as 2nd layer ski pants), we got used books, and the "play with" was either used or an art supply item. After casing eBay for good gloves for Jonathan, I did end up getting a pair that was a store return from an eBay seller, which is a little sketchy where NNY is concerned. Have you ever looked for used gloves on eBay? It's just not a thing.

4) NNY adds a "pause" to impulse spending and helps you find better solutions

Right before the Be Like Mike bike ride, we realized that Lucy's bike trailer seat was torn. Also, she hates sitting in that trailer. Also, wasn't Cal getting a little too big for his front seat on J's bike? So we came very close to buying a new double bike trailer. But we paused, because it would have been a major violation of NNY, and also a lot of money.  Since we wanted to take a short bike ride to test out all the equipment before the Be Like Mike, I just jimmy-rigged some of the webbing clips so that that  Lu wouldn't be dragging on the ground, and we took off. As it turns out, the trailer worked great! Much better than it ever did before it was broken. We have used it that way all summer, and we no longer have to bribe Lu with marshmallows to go on bike rides. This happened LOTS of times over the course of NNY.

We just don't need all the stuff we think we do. What would happen if you DIDN'T buy it? Probably, you would be just fine.

5) In moments of stress and/or while traveling, buying new feels great

We forgot one of Cal's shoes when we went to Oregon. We stopped by the goodwill in Bend, but no dice. The Nike store was across the street and I grabbed him a new pair for less that it would have cost on eBay and we continued on. It felt great.

Also, Scott's bday (just a few days ago) fell at the end of a two long trips and we just hadn't gotten a chance to plan amid the stresses of traveling and hosting. So, I picked him up two gifts at Costco (water balloons and a lego set). It was a big relief.

Going Forward

I'm surprised how exciting the prospect of buying new stuff feels--it lights up all the "acquire!" parts of my brain. I've been wanting a HomePod since last summer!  But before we go crazy, we're going to sit down as a family and decide how we want to live going forward. I'm guessing we'll stick mostly to NNY principles.

Healthy consumption, just like healthy eating, healthy spirituality, and healthy tech use (among others!) is a life-long challenge. It's not just going to happen with no thought. We're committed to figuring out the best way for our family.

Week 18: The Thrill of the Chase, Library Edition

I impulsively shared the URL for this seldom-updated blog in our Family's thanksgiving letter (maybe thinking that it would encourage accountability...)  For the record, we're still going strong! No "new" purchases to report. This morning Jonathan & I had a discussion about whether new dishcloths would fall under the acceptable "household disposables" category or not--he actually argued in favor of buying new and I suggested that I could make some with my mom's serger and a sanitized thrift-store towel (though I admit, I've never looked at thrift store towels before, so I don't know what the chances are). We'll let you know the outcome of that gripping drama.

I was thinking today about how good it feels to GET stuff.  Last year I noticed that I could spend an hour or two on Amazon comparing products, then feel very excited to order whatever it was, but by the time I got the box, I often couldn't even remember what was in it.  It's all about the getting, not the having (incidentally, I watched a PBS documentary a few years ago about JFK where they claimed that his womanizing followed the same pattern. He wasn't interested in any one affair, just the chase). Without pausing to do internet research, I think it's safe to say that's how most brains are wired.

NNY is helping us be more satisfied with what we already have, but....sometimes it's still nice to get a big pile of frivolous novel items. And it's still possible: at the library! Finding/checking out books activates the reward center in my brain in a very shopping-like way, but without most of the negative consequences (although it's funny how many books that were exciting to me at the library end up not being read at home. Especially cookbooks :-)

Stayin' Alive

OK, so I’m unmotivated to update the NNY blog. Does that mean NNY is dead?

No way!! We are going strong! To date, we have bought 2 “new” things (unused) things in 3 months. They were a cub scout neckerchief and webelos book (go figure that it would be cub scouting that would ruin our streak since I already have a bad attitude about the price of cubs. I hope the CEO of BSA is enjoying his cush lifestyle courtesy of fact that my eBay purchases of those two items both fell through & we ran out of time before our first pack meeting)

Speaking of eBay, I think it’s eBay’s fault that NNY doesn’t feel as revolutionary as I thought it would. Don’t get me wrong: we aren’t buying “new” things or dumb things (depending on your definition of dumb), but we ARE buying things like used snow pants on eBay, so the whole online shopping/packages on the doorstep thing is not dead.

I could MAKE it revolutionary by saying “no online purchases”…maybe we will do the last six months like that. It makes me feel a little nervous just to consider it.

The times I feel NNY most acutely are when I see Scott walking out the door with the stapler (“please guard that with your life!” or when Juju gets an invitation to a birthday party (“This certificate is good for one afternoon of ice skating with Juju”).

A few weeks ago my saintly dad fixed our hair drier—it died one day as I was trying to blow dry the seat of my pants (after sitting in a chair that Cal had visited with a water bottle) (and I really didn’t want a used hair drier). 

Having my dad spend 30 minutes fixing that old thing makes no economic sense, however, he IS part of why I feel so funny about sending things to the landfill. He doesn’t like to shop if he can help it, but one time when I was a teenager he came home from a trip to our area’s newish Walmart and said, with a look on his face that I’ll never forget, “They had a $20 vacuum. How could you even make a vacuum for $20?” The implication of disposable appliances made me feel as sick as he looked. Hopefully, as he fixed that hair drier, he still felt as strongly about conservation as he did then :-)

A "Nothing New" Birthday

We had our first NNY birthday! 

Juju is a great age for an NNY birthday (kindergarten); she's not really clued into this season's must-haves (fingers crossed that the American Girl catalogue doesn't follow us here). A couple of weeks before her birthday we decided to make her a gymnastics beam, which is fully permissible under NNY rules but has a certain "bigness" factor. 

It was fun to make and inexpensive (two parts of the NNY venn) (and possibly environmentally friendly in the sense that it wasn't shipped to our house or assembled/transported 6K miles from China)

She also got much-needed socks (new...socks are an NNY exception) and a pair of second-hand jeans.  Every parent has had the "Berenstain Bears Too Much Birthday" experience where the birthday/Christmas hoopla exceeds the kid's ability to process. We have found that 3ish simple gifts is a sweet spot and avoids the thing where they toss the freshly opened gift to one side so they can tear into the next package. Once we include cards/gifts from grandparents, it feels celebratory but not overboard (at least for ages 0-10. We know things can change as kids grow up). 

For her birthday party, we filled all seven passenger seats of the van (even the front seat, which I  learned afterwards is illegal, even if the airbags turn off...) with giggling girls and went to a neighborhood cafe/bakery, where each girl ordered a fancy treat. Then we headed to the park to play.  The girls had a blast, and nothing new was necessary. 

 Last year I was reading a "minimalism with kids" book and the author said that his family tells everybody, even grandparents, that they won't accept gifts. I get it--if you are trying to live the simplest life possible and someone give you extra stuff that you will just get rid of, well, that's no good for anyone. BUT we're not minimalists and we don't receive THAT many gifts in any case. Maybe I should have said, "no gifts" for Juju's party (as I often have) but I didn't, and she had fun receiving them (and thankfully they were cute but simple). 

Anyway, birthday success! We don't have to worry about another kid one until March :-)

PS. We thought keeping score would keep us from buying used things that we didn't really NEED, but it was a major pain to calculate and had no effect on our habits. So: from here on out, no score, just adherence to the rules.

Free Hangers! Free Cats!

OK--I'm a little up-in-the-air about calculating points this week, because we bought many "exceptions": some car parts, materials for building a birthday gift (more on this to come :-), all of hubby's required DPT textbooks and required *laptop*. We don't have a point designation for when we buy new items that are on the exception list! I think  I will just score them as bronzes.

So: 

Week 5 Points: 5 points (new car parts) - 5 points (we salvaged some needed hangers from a box full of old hangers while visiting my parents...is that resourceful?? Or just stealing???) = 0 points!!!

Week 6 points:  38! (7 textbooks (3 used (1 point each), 4 new), a computer, wood to build a desk, wood to build a gymnastics beam)

(we only took the "good" ones, or in this case, the plastic ones :-)

In other NNY news, as an alternative to buying a new pet, you can just borrow your neighbor's pet (or have him borrow you). 

Weeks 2, 3, 4...

When push comes to shove, I guess I'm not motivated to update a blog that only I read (maybe Jenny reads it? Jenny? Jenny??), but NNY is AWESOME. It streamlines the decision making process ("Should we buy that?" "No.")  It saves tons of time (walking through Target to get school supplies was my fastest-ever Target trip, because there was no point in looking at anything but school supplies). It even helps with keeping the 10th commandment--what's the point of wanting other people's cool stuff if I'm not going to buy it?

Here's points:

Week 2: 5 points

Week 3: 0!!!!!! Woohoo! (though it's easy not to buy anything at a family reunion in the boonies)

Week 4: 32. Yep. Not because we bought anything new! 32 items of school clothes at a great consignment store.  Kids clothes shopping is the whole reason that this couldn't be a nothing AT ALL new year. Stockpiling a years worth of clothes for 5 growing kids in order to not by anything is a little silly, and wouldn't have been in the true spirit of NNY. 

We're at the family cabin for Labor Day, but at a different point maybe I'll write a love letter to consignment stores (for Jenny to read. Jenny??)

Wouldn’t Want Week #1 to be TOO Good

Point total: 10 (1 gold, 4 silver, 2 bronze)

Recap

Week 1 was 100% NNY, but it wasn’t exactly a beautiful rebirth as a minimalist household like I’ve sometimes imagined. It was a normal week. If anything, we bought MORE than usual because Jonathan & the kids realized that the used book store is a green light! So four new (old) books.

Also: two eBay purchases. The first was Charlie and the Chocolate Factory book in Spanish for Jonathan, who is quickly narrowing the gap between his Spanish ability & mine (it’s just not fair that he studies Spanish all the time while I’m reading the google entertainment newsfeed). ANYWAY,  Spanish language novels are hard to find through the library (García Márquez is not quite his thing). 

The second eBay purchase was a dress for little sis that matches a 2nd hand one that big sis already has (we are suckers for matching dresses). Everybody happy, money saved, earth hopefully helped at least a little (compared to ordering both new).  

Our gold moment wasn’t dramatic.  We travel a lot, and we always use a Peapod for the baby (who is 1.5). Right before the trip, we found a little hole in the mesh (insert crying emoji). Damaged baby sleeping gear is one of those places we won’t go. Then we remembered we still have a travel-sized Pack n Play.  It’s nowhere near as convenient, but it’s FINE. #contentedness

Lastly, a NNY kid update: our son got an Amazon card for his birthday.  In our past life (last week) as prime members, everything would have been great! I expected a tantrum when I reminded him of our family goal, but then we remembered: Amazon used books. He’s happy with that, though We’re starting to feel like the endless online used options undermine the point of NNY. We’ll go a few more weeks using these rules, and if it doesn’t seem like we are getting desired result, we can make changes. Arriba y adelante!

The Rules + Keeping Score

Nothing new for a year. Here are the exceptions:

-Food

-Consumable housekeeping items (soap, toilet paper, laundry soap, etc)

-Underwear*, socks*, shoes**  

-School-required supplies

-Do-or-die home/car repair items

-Art supplies, Christmas gift-making supplies***

We can buy second-hand, although in an eBay world, NNY could quickly lose any meaning. For the sake of encouraging us to be content with what we have, we will add up weekly/monthly points (with the goal of the least points)

**Update** we ditched the points a long time ago. Just didn't care enough. 

GOLD (-5 points): when we fill an emergent need without buying anything (use what we have/repair something/make something) 

SILVER (1 point): fill a need**** using a yardsale/craigslist/a second hand store

BRONZE (5 points): fill a need using eBay

COAL (50 points): buying a new item from a store or online

We'll calculate points based on the number of items.

 *I think we have a year's supply of underwear and socks, and we can earn a gold by fixing a hole, but we won't get too crazy with this

**a few months ago I read through a bunch of other NNYers exception lists, and many of them had shoes, but we already buy second hand shoes when the mood strikes (don't tell our podiatrist) (we don't have one). I DO worry about good sports shoes, and sometimes a good newish pair of every day shoes doesn't pop up from a second-hand source.

***this is a big loophole, but we're talking markers, paint, crayons, paper--stuff that gets used up quickly around here. We are going to help the kids plan & make some Christmas gifts, so there's that.

****Hopefully analyzing each purchase will help us focus on "needs". The kids are on board with NNY to an extent, but the ones who are old enough to understand the ramifications have already thought about where they can buy used-but-intact lego sets. Clearly not "needs", but we want them on board, so if they use their own money to buy used toys, we will just add up the points and carry on. 

Why Again?

For a few days right before Christmas last year, we had a stack of Amazon Prime boxes that reached from the floor to the ceiling in our entryway. The thing is, we were already trying for a "simple Christmas"--a gift to read, a gift to wear, a gift to play with. But when you multiply that by 5 kids and add gifts from friends/relatives, adult gifts, and stockings from Santa (that old spendthrift), it was a truly striking pile of materialism.

Looking at those boxes, I told Jonathan that we should do that "buy nothing new for a year" thing, you know, like we used to read about people doing in 2012 (we're always late to the bandwagon). I was ready to start RIGHT THEN but Jonathan pointed out in his practical way that it wasn't quite the time for it--we were getting ready to sell our house, then move, then set up a small rental house in a way that would be comfortable for a family of 7, and maybe we couldn't do all that while limiting ourselves to chance finds at the Salvation Army.

But we're here now! Pretty much settled in. No excuses left. 

Above & beyond holiday overload, we hope a "nothing new year" will give our family the chance develop character attributes we want for ourselves and our kids. This fine venn diagram breaks it down:

NNY for the Earth
-We want our lifestyle to fit with how we feel about the planet. NNY will help cut consumption
-Having less stuff means we can live comfortably in a small house (7 bodies/1300 sq ft)

NNY for Our Minds/Spirits
-Less focus on things, more focus on experiences
-"making do" or repairing what we have builds attributes we want, like patience, resourcefulness, contentedness, creativity
-Less time online shopping = more time doing better things

NNY for Our Pocketbook (actually we don't own any pocketbooks, but I was just reading some historical fiction and it just slipped into the diagram)
-obviously, not buying things = more money saved (though we will still spend on activities)
-though our rules allow buying used, our point system encourages not buying

Day 1!

It's almost 9AM on day one of the "Nothing New Year" and so far: complete success! Actually I'm embarrassed to admit that there's already something I wish I bought yesterday (a black tank for under this one shirt...but...maybe next year?)

Yesterday we had a mini-buying frenzy, but nothing too crazy. "Supplies required by school" is a NNY exception, we needed to replenish our lunch-packing supply (with Juju in kindergarten, 3 lunches going out this year). Scott has always been anti-EasyLunchbox so I compromised by springing for a lunchbox to go OVER the EasyLunchbox so now he won't have to do the tough job of carrying his water bottle in his hand  But hey! From here on out, no free (new) lunch (boxes).

Last week we went to an amusement park and I climbed into a roller coaster seat next to the boys and the guy walked by and snapped the big padded collar thing around my neck and I thought--"I don't know if I really want to do this, but there's no going back now." Jonathan is the NNY collar-snapper. It was my idea, but with his iron-clad self discipline and love of noble suffering (it's a mennonite thing?) he was always going to be the NNY star. So after several weeks of me saying "we will start NEXT week!" he finally said, "If we're doing this, let's start TOMORROW." That was a good move on his part, because I never did the kind of REAL buying frenzy that would have happened if I had planned it. So the roller coaster is on the move!