And So it Begins....

2010 marks the beginning of our “Year without Spending”. For those of you who missed my previous blog, Tim and I decided to challenge ourselves to go one year without spending. As I mentioned before, this sounds a whole lot worse then it really is. Of course we are going to still by necessities but we are going to completely cut out anything we consider “non-essential” for one year. We do have a couple of commitments that we have outstanding and those we are still going forward with. For instance, we feel that being that Owen will only be this age once, it is important to document that with as many pictures as possible. So, we are going to keep our JCPenny appointment as we can get good deals through them. But perhaps, in the Spring/Summer, I will attempt to do my own photo shoots with him outside.


We know how challenging this is going to be and know already that we will probably slip. But we are still going to attempt it none the less in an effort to restructure our priorities. I was really turned off this passed holiday season with all of the greed and materialism that was going around and found it really difficult to get into the Christmas spirit because of it. But I can’t point fingers without looking, first, at myself. Tim and I buy A LOT of DVD’s, CD’s, etc. I love to shop and tend to shop (especially online), just because I’m bored. But how much of this stuff do we really NEED?

Things are finally looking up for us with Tim going back to school. It’ll be rough for the years he’s in school but we feel like there is a light at the end of the tunnel now. This has left us at a crossroads where we feel like we should be evaluating where we want to go from here. And where we want to go is towards a family that is less focused on material things and more focused on relationships and quality time.

Thus, we would like to ask our friends and family to not buy us anything for our Birthday’s this year. We will be making all of our presents this year and those always mean the most to us anyway. So, being that all of our presents will be homemade, we don’t want everyone else to spend a lot on us in return. I know this might come across as cheap but that is far from the point we are trying to make. We are simply trying to adjust the value in our life. A card with a heart felt note or a handmade gift can be just as valuable as anything store bought.

As of right now, we are attempting this for just one year. If we feel like we are successful in establishing our goals, we might continue further. However, that is difficult to judge as of yet being that we have only just begun.

And so it begins. May the coming year bring all that we hope and more…

Click here to read the article that inspired our journey.