Buy Nothing New For Me Challenge - January

Okay, so it's been an interesting month. I knew this was going to be a difficult challenge for me. I like shopping, and now I'm working, I do like to treat myself a bit more. (Well, a lot more actually and this was part of the problem).

I think I more or less have everything I need at the moment and I can't say that I want for anything in particular, but there is always something that causes me to twitch and in this, the first month of this new challenge, it was a book.  This book:

I bought it from a local Charity shop in December for £2.50. The New Year came around and as usual, I wanted to start the year reading a book that could inspire me, so I picked up this book to read.  Malcolm Gladwell wasn't an author I was familiar with, but the cover notes appealed to me.

Well, what a book! Three quarters of the way through it and thoroughly enjoying it, I hit upon a chapter about plane crashes, of all things. Well, it just really blew my mind and that was it. I was on eBay buying three other titles by the same author. I just couldn't help myself.

Granted, they were all pre-owned books, offering free postage and totalled less than £9 in total outlay, but I still broke with the challenge, albeit not strictly according to the wording, as they aren't new, but they are new to me. I've already read one of the three, which was quite interesting and am looking forward to reading the other two at some point this year.

Anyway, it's done and I'm not going to beat myself up about it, because I consider books like this to be an educational investment, so I'm just going to enjoy reading them.

Here are the three books I bought:

I did actually buy a few other non-consumable items this month, most of which were from the CS where I work. The things that weren't from the CS  included a new salad spinner from Poundland (£2),  (ours was getting a little bit old and manky - it gets a lot of use) a cushion from ASDA (£7)- a birthday present for LB, to decorate her bedroom and some more coat hangers from Primark (£4) for LB, as she didn't have enough to hang all of her clothing. Luckily, I'd already bought most of her birthday presents before this challenge began.

The other items I bought this month include the following:

From the CS - I bought one jigsaw puzzle (£2.99) (new and unused and probably an unwanted Xmas gift) and six pairs of new socks, (£5.95) which I'm going to give to OH for his birthday in May. A lovely 2018 Eric Ravillious calendar (£2.99) for the living room, a phone holder cuff (£1.99) to wear at the gym, so that I can use my phone's pedometer to record my steps when I'm doing classes. I also bought an inflatable neck pillow (£1.99) (also new and unused) that I will use on our trip to NYC next month and some heavily (70%) reduced Xmas items (£4) that were in the shop sale to use next year.

From eBay - I bought a few things in an attempt to spend some Paypal monies in my business account before I close it.  These included a silicone cover for my new phone (£1.28), a felt phone case for my new phone (£1.55) and a hi-vis cover for my backpack (£3.95) for when I'm riding my bike to and from the bus stop on dark mornings and at night on the way home.  There was also the bedside cabinet (£15) I bought on eBay too, of course.

Not a perfect start to the challenge, but better than I thought it was going to be and most of the items were pretty small and I would say important, for reasons of safety, health or prevention of damage to things (including me).

For the most part, I didn't really miss going to shops other than mainly supermarkets this month, and in fact when I did visit the mall to take care of some business at the bank, I couldn't wait to get out of there. I just didn't want to go into any of the shops at all, but I realise that I do need to be careful not to overcompensate and spend too much in the CS (and on eBay) instead and also overspend in other consumable budgets such as household/food, etc.  I guess at least what I am spending in the former is going to a good cause and doing some good and the latter will get used up eventually. If everyone just stopped spending money, then the country would be in a pickle, so a bit of expenditure is ok.

Talking of which, the book I'm currently reading does suggest that money needs to keep moving in order to do good in the world, so reading that did make me feel a little better. More about the book in question in another post.

Hopefully, next month I will be a bit more successful on this new challenge.  I think I've developed a definite habit of spending money that is harder to break than I imagined. I'll keep trying though. Practice makes perfect after all.