2012 challenge "Make do with nothing new"

As I've got more into my recycling projects I've also become more thoughful of just how much of a throw away society we have become.  The only trouble with that is that there is no "away", all the stuff we chuck out is still here clogging up our space/planet and this bothers me.  I've also realised that stuff = stress and that I have way too much of both right now. 

Soooooo..... my challenge for 2012 is to "make do with nothing new" for the whole year in an effort to vastly reduce our family's footprint.


We are an ordinary family who have never attempted anything like this before so I do realise it's gonna be a huge challenge but I think I'm up to it and I'm really looking forward to seeing how it changes the way we live.  So here goes:

In 2012 I challenge myself to:

• Make no new purchases of non-essential items for 12 months.
• Source things we do need from recycled (preferably charitable) sources.
• Re-use and re-purpose things we already have in our household wherever possible.
• Consciously choose foods with minimal packaging and source all we can from local businesses.
• Recycle everything we can.
• Greatly increase the volume of food we grow ourselves organically.
• Continue to recycle and upcycle all sorts of things for my projects.
• Generally make do with what we already have and get creative with it.

Essential items are:

• food;
• toiletries;
• kids shoes & school gear;
• replacement of necessary household appliances should they be unrepairable; and 
• repair/servicing of cars and the caravan.  

After much thought I have also decided to exclude tools and materials for my upcycle projects from the challenge.  Although largely recycled, there are some things (paint, staples, threads etc) which simply cannot be obtained second hand.  

This is going to be a huge learning curve for us and I would love you to share all your positive suggestions, tips, advice and support.  Please remember that I'm a person, just like you, I'm not trying to tell anyone how to live, just trying something new for us.

I'm looking forward to blogging our progress, who knows were we'll end up?  Right now I'm off to install the "No junk mail"  sign on the letterbox.

Ciao for now