update

This not buying stuff is great! My bills are paid and I actually have money in the bank. Not a lot, mind you, but I'm not in overdraft either.

I survived two temptations over the weekend. The first was a fair trade t-shirt situation. I received a JustShirt for Christmas but it didn't fit. The lovely person who gave it to me offered four shirts in the right size to chose from. I really like two of them. Briefly thought about buying a second one, but somehow resisted. Went with the style she originally chose for me and (mostly) put the other one out of my mind.

The second temptation was on a trip to the mall to return a gift my sister received for Christmas. In my state of heightened awareness, I was easily able to turn up my nose at all the mall had to offer... until I walked through the food court. All that junky badness! What evil person put the popcorn place and the pretzel place right across from one another, so that no matter which way I turned my head, I saw something that I suddenly craved?!? But they were no match for my iron will. Gift returned, I hopped back on the bus having bought nothing.

"There are two ways to get enough: one is to continue to accumulate more and more. The other is to desire less." -G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936)

Our whole society is set up to buy, buy, buy, and to not be a consumer takes a great deal of unlearning. I'm unlearning to want more and learning to desire less. And as much as being broke prompted me to put a moratorium on spending, it's not really about the money.