Honeybee*Hill

I finally got around to cleaning out our china cabinet and setting out the tea set my grandmother gave me when I was very very young. I’ve been trying to clear some of the clutter out of our house. This has been difficult the past few weeks — with this semester winding down (both my husband and myself are full-time students as well as full-time workers and parents!), and Aaron’s grandmother passing. But when I watched The Story of Stuff I really started to feel ashamed about how much I bring in and dump out of this house.

Of course, after talking about it with Aaron, we came to the conclusion that it’s probably only 6-7% or less of our monthly take-home income that goes toward the purchase of stuff (that doesn’t include food, of course). Our entertainment budget is spent mostly on renting movies and going out to dinner. And while we still do buy a lot of stuff, we don’t buy a lot of stuff that gets trashed after a few uses — most of that 6% is probably books and craft supplies.

I’ll admit, rather shamefully, that I’m really really bad about compulsively buying craft supplies. Even worse when I figure how I have shelves and shelves full of materials already and some I know I’ll never use. I certainly don’t need to buy any more before I use up what I have, is what I’m saying. So why can’t I stop?

And even while we are definitely doing our part to steer the consumer-driven economy, we do make certain green efforts (Aaron documents them in his blog). I really want to take this a step farther though, so here I am going to promise to use the craft supplies I can before buying new for new projects. I also want to try to reduce the amount of stuff in our house — which has little to do with consumerism except that I want to reduce the stuff and promise not to replace it. A friend of mine did this last year and I think I’m going to make it my 2008 resolution — 365 less things in my house by the end of the year.

It’s important to establish rules for such an undertaking though. So I think that for every one thing I purchase that isn’t foodstuff (foodstuffs, toiletries, etc., don’t count), I get a +1 added to the tally. For everything I get rid of or re-purpose, it’s a -1 (the idea being to get to -365 by December 31, 2008).

I know it seems really odd that I would advocate having less stuff on a blog attached to my little whammy business, but the way I figure it, if you’re going to buy stuff (and if I’m going to buy stuff), doing so with conscience is the key. Of course buy local, buy homemade — detox your world and clear out the clutter!

I really want to do this! What do you think? Can I do it?