New Years' Resolution--Project Social Experiement

This project has been born out of a long, LONG progression of thoughts and ideas that has made me who I am today. I am very excited to be testing this to push myself in directions that I even never thought were possible.

Here is the deal. I am trying to solve three problems.

1.) I am so tired of relying on the system of HAVING to buy something to be able to HAVE something. I have progressively been asking myself more and more WHY we are buying something. It could very easily be made at home, how come no one does that. The things I have come to realize can be done at home, that I have started to do myself to wonderful results have to deal with food. I want to push this limit. Why are we paying more for rice milk than we are for regular milk or even for gas? Why can't we make our own tofu/eggnog/ice cream/corned beef/ roast beef/cheese/yogurt, etc. Pushing these limits have turned me into an incredible cook. I plan to push more limits until I know how to do it all.

This whole concept has spread out into another realm. Why do I have to buy shampoo? Why can't I make it? Why do I have to buy soap or clothes, or...or...OR. This is how the experiment was born. More on that later. I guess the point is that I am tired of having to rely on buying something when I want to do something. I want to be creative and be resourceful.

2.) Going Green. This is my second motivation. It all started last February when I was pregnant, and I brought up the idea of using cloth diapers with the new baby. Jared was less than thrilled, and after a lot of convincing, he consented. The whole thing has spiraled into me loving to cloth diapers so much that I am in the process of making my own because that is the only thing that will be good enough (and cheap enough). After the cloth diaper thing, everything went downhill from there. Why buy baby food in a jar, it's totally crazy. Just make your own. It saves throwing out the bottles, and it is way more healthy. Let's save electricity and burn candle light. Let's buy a rain barrel and save the water. I have a whole plan for the future on how I am going to build a sustainable house, but we've not the money for that now. Now, I am just going to push the limits of what we do have. I plan to have a lot of fun with this--reusing old materials and using materials that can be reused.

3.) Money. Everyone knows that not buying things is cheaper. If you recycle old sweaters to make diaper covers, then you are not having to buy new diaper covers, and you thus have saved your money. We do have some debt, and my plan is to save money and put all the money we saved toward the debt. I will also donate parts of my personal money each month to the debt 50% to be exact! I'm committed to saving the environment and being thrifty while I do.

Here are the rules.

No buying any manufactured goods that I could make at home. I can buy raw materials and things to make raw materials.

I will support the arts by making movies as an exception. We can buy movies, but only on DVD.

I can go out to events. Though it is not saving the fossil fuels that would otherwise be saved by staying at home, they can be wholesome and wonderful activities for the family.

I will watch the TV shows that I like now on the Internet, but no more watching new TV shows. This is not going to be a problem because the writer's strike is raving TV.

I will strive to think outside of the box on the things that I find necessary to buy.

I will talk about exceptions later, as they may come up.

I just need to get this put into use now.

Follow along and consider playing along yourself. I'm sure there are rules you could come up with to live a more green life.