No spending for a week and other adventures

Interior of replica of cabin at Walden Pond
photo credit Tom Stohlman

The experiment we have dubbed "unSunday" has been a terrific success so far. The last two Sundays, I have stayed off my computer and the Internet in order to add back some balance in my everyday life. Rather than feeling restricted from something, it's been quite freeing. I encourage you to try examine you day to day life and see if there is something that maybe you are overdoing and try to take one day off from it. It could be TV, computer etc...or maybe you work too much or want to take a day off from sugar or (God forbid) coffee. We are using the Twitter hashtag #unSunday if you are interested in participating.

In my quest for balance, I've been doing some other things to find a happy medium. One thing that always makes me feel better is decluttering. I think my husband is going to start nailing his possessions down, though, because the trips to the Goodwill are beginning to get out of hand. My goal is to give away 20 things every Saturday and throw away (or recycle) 20 things every Sunday. You'd think it would be hard to find 20 things that belong in the garbage just lying around your house, but it really isn't difficult. My make-up drawer was a treasure trove. I've also found silly, broken things in odd places. Why was I saving a water bottle cap in the basket next to my computer?

And then there is money balance. Dude. All that stuff I'm decluttering? I'm probably still paying for half of it in credit card debt. Yuck. I've whittled it down over the last year or two, but I can do better. And that means no more financing things I don't really need or want to begin with. I've seen some extremists (well, extremist to ME) opt out of consumerism for a year as a way to be frugal. I'm not ready for that just yet--but we've talked about taking a week every month in which we mindfully do not buy or spend any money. It will take some planning--groceries and gas spring to mind. And it will take some willpower--I'm looking at you Kindle one-click. But I think we can do it. I plan on keeping a list of things that I want to spend money on during that week and then really think about my choices when the week is over.

What do you think?