One of the grey areas of our year of not shopping is purchases I have to make for work. As a youth pastor I have a budget for curriculum, books, nachos, NERF guns, and other important aspects of youth ministry. There are often times I have to purchase something new for the church or youth ministry and generally this allowed. Last time Malora and I did not include my purchases for work in the plans for the Compact and this time around we left the door pretty wide open as well.

This morning I purchased 4 books. All great books and all relevant to my job working with youth and young adults. I could have gotten away with my grey sneak but I have the inability to keep anything wrong I have done from my wife. This evening I said to Malora,

“There was an awesome sale at the bookstore today and I bought some really great books all 20% off. They are for work and I really need them”

To which Malora replied,

“What about the trillions of other books on your shelf that you have never read. You cheated, you can’t do the Compact. You have to write a blog post about this and confess your mistake.”

Busted!

I have to admit, Malora is totally right. I do have tons of books on my shelf I have never read, that I have wanted to get around to for a long time, and this is the year to do it. So, for the next year I will not buy any new books for personal pleasure or for work…pleasure. I will also try to bring the concepts of the Compact into my work purchases and decrease the amount of NERF bullets I buy (we go through a lot of NERF darts every year).

It’s hard because that has kind of been like a parachute to this whole experiment and a way to get around the rules. I think that it will be an important step in breaking free from the stream of consumerism.

Plus, maybe I can finally get around to reading the pile of books I need to read.

(Update 1/28/11) I returned the books to the bookstore on Wednesday and have started tackling the pile of books I have in my office.

Last night I watched the documentary King Corn. It is a film which follows two Boston film makers who move to a small town in Iowa called Greene, Iowa to attempt to raise an acre of corn. They follow the corn from kernel to it’s final destination in the North American food cycle. This final destination is the stomach of a cow or the artificial sweetener (high fructose corn syrup) in…well…just about everything. It is an entertaining documentary and right up my alley of experience driven experiments (much like the Compact).

It is scary how much of the food we consume comes from corn. On average we consume 75 pounds of high fructose corn syrup every year. The vast majority of the corn grown in North America can not be eaten until it is processed and turned into other things. It really made me rethink having a bowl of ice cream because essentially I am eating a bowl of milk and corn, which actually now that I think about it sounds delicious.

We have tried to put a limit on the amount of processed foods we eat as a family but it is often hard to get away from. We mainly eat fresh home cooked stuff because of Malora’s arthritis but as a youth pastor there are often many late nights full of tim bits, doritos, and coke.

Very thought provoking documentary (although I haven’t finished the whole thing yet). Anybody else seen this movie? Thoughts?

So one of the goals that I had when we started this whole compact life thing was to write about it at least once a week. I have already failed. Although technically 1/1/11 was written on a saturday and being the last day of the week I don’t really think that counts as not writing for a week. Regardless, I will try to be better in the many weeks ahead.

One of the presents that I got for Christmas was a Briefcase USB Turntable. It is an awesome turntable because it has speakers built in and a usb port out so I can record records onto my laptop. Very cool…thanks mom and dad Leask. I also received a cheque in the mail from my grandma for Christmas and I said to Malora, “Let’s split this baby and buy anything used we want.” I had in mind to buy some records to go along with my record player. I really want some vintage Johnny Cash, U2, or Radiohead records.

Malora lovingly reminded me that the point of this whole not shopping year is to, not shop. I said, “Of course and I am all on board for that, but I want to buy used records which are USED.” Malora once again lovingly reminded me that I didn’t NEED any used records and that we are not supposed to buy things we don’t need. We buy NEEDS not WANTS.

At first I was a little annoyed by the fact I couldn’t go out and buy whatever I wanted, even if it was used. But, in the end Malora was right and reluctantly I agreed. We so often fall into the trap of thinking we really need something when in actual fact we just want it.

It is a hard habit to overcome, but it is one that I hope will become more natural in the coming year. On Sunday some friends of ours, the Duecks, who are also doing their own compact gave me a copy of Simon and Garfunkle’s Bridge Over Troubled Water. We have so much and we really need so little.

Last time we did the Compact we had a set of “rules” well, they were more goals really. We thought we would flesh them out a little more. The goals are mostly the same… anyway here are the tweaked rules and goals for the Compact 2011.

Yes, we can buy:

Food- groceries, dine out a maximum of 2x a month

Safety items- light bulbs, batteries, tires (if one explodes)

Used items/thrift store- as needed. Last time we perused the thrift store a little too much. We will only be in the thrift stores when we need an item and only look for the item we need.

Personal care- Deodorant, tooth paste, cosmetics (again as needed, I am not going to go wild a MAC or Sefora).

Entertainment- rent movies, get items at the library, or if we ever get to go out on a date, we will go to the theater for a movie or a concert. Let’s be honest, if it happens that Tom and I get to go out together, just the two of us, it is a MAJOR treat that doesn’t happen near enough. We are going to take full advantage if thatsituation arises.

Nasties- Underwear and socks. Used = yuck.

Gifts- We can buy experiences (concert, play, theater tickets), used items or hand made.

Education- classes (Tom), coffee (for studying at coffee shops), school supplies.

Making crafts, art, or gifts- try to find items used, or buy new supplies only as needed.

Here are our goals:
- Bring less “stuff” or clutter into the world and our home
- Break our addiction to consumerism
- To be more creative in the way we live our life
- Spend more time as a family doing fun free things
- As a period of fasting – to remove any hindrances in our walk with Christ
- Save money
- Gain a new and Biblical perspective of money
- Become more generous and instill that in Noah and Jude
- Save ten percent of what we save in the year and give it to a charity
- Blog once a week
- Become more of producers than consumers

I was listening to the radio a while back and the guy who created Veggie Tales was being interviewed. It was a really interesting interview and one thing that he said really stuck out for me. The idea of being a producer rather than a consumer. He said if one of his kids comes up to him and says he wants to watch tv, sometimes he says, “let’s make a movie, here’s the video camera”. I love that idea. I hate being an idle consumer. I am totally guilty of it though. I often catch myself thinking, “what can I get from this?”

I felt that we became producers the last time we did the compact. We made a lot of gifts and repaired clothes and didn’t just mindlessly buy things to replace broken items in our lives. Or buy things to replace broken parts in our lives. I think that many people in our culture (including myself) tend to buy things to make ourselves feel happy- even if it is just for a minute. I want to find other ways to find happiness in life. There are so many glorious things all around us just waiting for us to notice them. Like my children waiting for me to watch Toy Story 3 with them and eat popcorn apples and cheese. Until next time…

1.1.11 seems like the perfect date to start our year of not shopping. Partly because New Years day is the day when you have to start making good on all of the New Year’s resolutions that you made the night before. To eat less, exercise more, start that novel you’ve always wanted to read, and to generally be a better person.

It’s also a great day to start our compact because 1…1…11 is just a pretty awesome date. It’s like January 23, 2045 (1/23/45) or 10/10/10 last year when my brother John got married. I love it when there are cool date numerals like this. I guess I will need to be entertained by things like this for the next year because we are definitely not going to have the entertainment of going to the mall and buying stuff we don’t need for the next 12 months.

This year is going to be different then the last time we did our year of not shopping because we are not doing it alone. This time around we have a group of good friends doing it with us. There is also a group of people doing it in Arizona with my friend Josh Barton leading the pack. I am sure we will share stories and pictures of the group soon, but for now I just share the excitement and trepidation I have about the coming year.

I know that we will be able to do it, but I hope that we are able to learn even more then we did last time. I feel like I got a little bit lost towards the end being in the news and everything and hopefully this time I can stay focused, have fun, and grow in community with the people we are doing it with.

So here’s to a year of not buying anything new.

rules coming soon

We are really excited to start our new compact for 2011. So excited in fact that we are going to have a potluck to celebrate. Everyone is invited to find out more information about the Compact and to encourage each other.

If you want to come RSVP on the facebook page

Elvis will not be there.

A new compact is coming in 2011. We are actually planning on redoing the compact, as in a year of not shopping, but changing it slightly to make it a different experience. We want to cut back, reduce, and live a better life, but this time we will be doing the compact within the context of community.

It was awesome living our year of not shopping as a family but in 2011 we will widen the circle and include friends, family, and complete strangers. So here is our challenege:

WILL YOU CUT OUT THE EXCESS FOR 1 YEAR?

This will look different for each person. Maybe it means cutting out excess TV, food, shopping, or anything else that you may do to excess. If you are interested in being a part of the community email us or join the facebook group.

More details to come on our compact life.