Resolve

I've been experiencing a growing sense of unease and guilt in the check-out line over the past few years. 2009 has been declared the year to do something about it. We've made the resolution, the rules and now the carrot/stick. A blog for family and friends to see our progress, whether we stick to it or we slip back to easy corporate consumerism.

Our rules started out with just one: only shop at local stores. This is our central goal but the more we talked about it, the more we came up with other bad habits of consumerism we want to kick. Basically, there are two underlying goals behind the rules.
-We want our money helping our local economy and not the already bulging pockets of mega-corporations.
-We want to do the least harm to the environment and to our bodies.

Without further preamble, our year of very conscious consumption rulebook:
1. Only buy from local stores.
2. Only eat at local restaurants.
3. No newly made clothing or electronics.
4. Hair/beauty products from the natural foods co-op and only those that pass the test: http://www.cosmeticsdatabase.com/
5. No magazines with high ad content or ads pretending to be articles.
6. When an organic/fair trade/sustainable version is available, the conventional version is off-limits.
7. If it is available used (even if it takes time to find), no buying it new.
8. Plastic bags for veg and bulk at the grocery store should be saved and reused. Minimize food purchased with lots of packaging.
9. No Internet shopping.

That's reasonable, right? I'll elaborate on these Nine Commandments and the perils of preparation in a future post.