Conscious Consumerism

One of my goals for this new year was to be more conscious of consumerism. Try to buy less and cut out the needless shopping and the need to acquire stuff just for the short lived thrilled of having something new. But that has turned out to be harder than I thought. I have not bought anything needless lately, so that's good. But things happen and the need to purchase arises more than I wish it would. Case in point....my microwave just bit the dust. It just stopped working. We checked into getting it repaired, but repair shops who deal with microwaves turned out to be few and far between. We would have to pack up this huge heavy oven and pay postage to send it off somewhere. Bruce spent some time going through online microwave troubleshooting sites with repair advice, but none of the usual easy fixes pertained to what happened to mine (like a blown fuse....I still have power and the keypad still works....?). So it looks like we will have to go out and buy another one.

I had a discussion about this kind of thing with Lori back when we visited Asheville a couple of months ago. She said, "Its not like I am out there consuming willy nilly, but things just happen!" I think this was over the fact that her vacuum was showing some age and might have to be replaced. Oh well, I will have to be out there buying a new microwave because in this busy household it is something of a necessity.
At least....at the very least, we have a place in our local recycle center for household appliances. I can have some peace of mind knowing its not just going to go sit in a landfill somewhere. I am still trying to be more conscious of what I buy. I was off work yesterday, and I decided to go out for a little while and just shop. And I did. I went out, tried on some clothes, looked at handbags and shoes for a couple of hours. But I never felt the overwhelming urge to buy any of it. There was nothing I absolutely needed so I had my fun and then walked away without spending a dime....until I had to run to the grocery store, that is.