Mortaine’s Blog

Woo hoo. Two rejections in ONE DAY!

Baggage was rejected from Blackbird.

Three weeks ago, I joined The Compact, which is a commitment not to buy any new products for a year.

Well, I can’t quite commit to a year. Seriously– it’s just not in me to do anything for a whole year. But for 100 days? Sure– and if I’m going to develop a good habit, it takes me about 100 days to do it in.

Like a diet, I sometimes fall off the wagon, and I did so last week when I ordered Fluxx Español from Looney Labs. Fluxx is our favorite game around here– my Fluxx deck is so big from adding custom cards, I had to buy a special box for it (not to worry, though– there’s a whole line of card boxes for gamers, thanks to the popularity of Magic: The Gathering and other collectible card games).

But aside from the card game, which was bought from an eco-friendly, independent hippie game publisher, John and I haven’t bought many new things since starting the Compact. This becomes challenging when we head out on a Sunday afternoon, presumably to go do our weekly shopping trips. Things like mouthwash, which isn’t available at the local grocery store, are particularly bothersome, because the drug store is like, well, a drug. But a store. Last week I entered the drug store for packing tape and video tapes, and had to exert a lot of willpower to stay away from the office supplies!

So, some of the things I’ve done to help keep myself from going out and spending money:

• Declutter the house and getting ready for a yard sale
• Cross-stitch (made a cute Jeep-related thing for someone in the Jeep club last month)
• Spin yarn: Sunday I went to the local spinning group for a few hours and spun with other spinners– much fun.
• Sewing — I made a cat toy for Alladin last week.
• Reading: I’ve read 21 books since January 1.
• Cooking — the new diet takes time to cook dinners.
• Practicing my speeches for Toastmasters
• Going to RV shows– cheap entry fees, and there’s no way I’m buying a rig on-the-spot.
• Working
• Packing up books to send to BookMooch‘ers
• Homework for Spanish class (class and homework fill about 8-10 hours per week)
• Walking dogs
• Training and playing with my cat
• Playing card games
• Watching TV (but only if I can skip the commercials)
• Watching my fish (the livebearers had babies!)
• Cleaning the house (laundry, dishes, etc.)
• Scanning and filing for the paperless office, including old archives

So, tell me. What are your non-spending-money activities and ideas?

Ouroboros: rejected from Apex, but with some very useful feedback from the editor.