“What a difference a day made
Twenty-four little hours
Brought the sun and the flowers
Where there used to be rain”
How about 30 Days?
30 days hath September.
30 days to build a habit.
“30 days” gets a lot of use in our world.
I stumbled upon a post on Salt and Chocolate– one of my daily reads– and in it was a little green button “30 days of nothing” it said. I was really interested in what this was all about.
She linked back to a challenge on Owlhaven.
“For one month we drastically cut back on our spending, to see just how much we could live without. Different families played along to different degrees. But for our family that meant no new clothes, no books, no eating out, and only the absolute essentials when it came to groceries.
Just to clarify the ‘rules’, this is an extremely personal project. I’m not going to say you must do ‘xyz’ to be involved. The purpose of the month is to look at each and every decision and say, ‘Must I spend money for this? Can I live without it? Is there a cheaper option?”
Grappling with your own personal set of ‘rules’ IS the project.
When you scrutinize every penny coming out of your pocket it can get really complicated really quick.”
Now I am even more interested….
We are, like many, challenged as a single income family. By design, or default, we have chosen this to keep family life the way we needed it to be while the kids are young. Change is coming, but we’re still pedaling.
Always grappling with a shortage in the financial district. You likely know what I mean. Price of gas. Price of food. BGE. SCHOOL SUPPLIES! There are a million variables. So we do this never-ending and exhausting dance of trying to get a grip on what IS and also to harness the flow and turn it around. To find a way to pay it all. To have a little extra. To find a way to save for the ever (b)looming future. You can see how through this challenge you would likely find that “little extra”! I am imagining a lot of issues arising– dealing with our own wants v.s. needs. Our habits. Our comfort zones. The kids and their desires…. yeow.
I mentioned Simplemom last post. I have been exploring her site, and finding it inspiring, comforting and very very helpful. She is an organizational mastermind! She is teaching me. I am soaking it up. If you haven’t checked her out, go on now. She is so generous with her ideas and resources. That’s what it’s all about, right? Giving the good stuff away? Spreading the love.
The 30 day thing seems like a very interesting and revealing exercise, whether it is done personally or as a family/group. For me there’s that “Doing the same thing over and over– and expecting different results= madness” thing. I am excited to explore what comes up and see if I can make some changes/create new habits that make our life a little less MAD. I want to become more resourceful. I want us to have some room.
If our family plays along together in the experience of it, I think it will be an even richer experience. RICHER– and not just the saved/found money. We will grow closer through talking about what’s going on with it and problem solving. I hope that the kids will learn to think about value and money and needs/wants differently
It’s a lot of something for nothing, that’s what I think.
THEN…
I thought I would dig a little deeper and see if there was any other reference to the challenge online.
Wow. It is been around the net for a while in various forms. It seems to have sprung forth from the 30 days of nothing blog. The application of the concept here is much more intense. She presents not just a campaign for tightening up the belt around the household or Finding a little extra cash to use or put towards your existing debt. These are certainly good things. She takes it much deeper– A sort of “fast from consumerism and the grip that materialism has on our hearts and minds”. Here is the opening of her blog (with permission) I encourage you to read through her families experiences for the month. There is also a separate discussion page where others who were participating could talk about their experiences.
The beginning
We’re out of touch. Let’s just be honest about that right up front.
Today, across the world, 1.3 billion people live on less than one dollar a day; 3 billion live on under two dollars a day; 1.3 billion have no access to clean water; 3 billion have no access to sanitation; 2 billion have no access to electricity.1
Think about your children; about the hard work you put into raising them. Now imagine doing it with no electricity.
No bathroom. No garbage service.
No clean water.
On $2 a day.
Is it any wonder that 30,000 children under the age of 5 die every day from poverty-related issues? That’s 210,000 a week or over 10 million a year, if you’re counting.2
I have four children. When they woke up this morning I kissed them and made them a good healthy breakfast. 30,000 other children died.
Americans spend $110 billion a year on fast food, 3
39 billion dollars a year on their pets. 4We are carrying over 2 trillion dollars in credit card and auto debt.5For 30 days, my family will buy nothing except our basic necessities. No clothes or books. No movies, no trips to the ice cream parlor. No paper, or pictures, or magazines. No fancy hair gel or take-and-bake pizza. Lattes? Nope. Nothing except what it takes to live. During that month, I will journal our experiences, and blog my thoughts about poverty and hunger and our response to those issues. I’d like to try and identify with some of the “least” (economically) of the world. We will try and live without electricity for a day; eat only rice for a day. Perhaps the family will sleep together in one room for a night – on the floor; or walk six miles one day – the distance some African women walk daily to get clean water.
The goal of this month-long fast is to break the grip of materialism in our hearts and minds. We want to live in gratitude, not discontent; and we want to live with awareness of the great responsibility our affluence has laid on our shoulders.
It’s all so much to think about. I have a few days to think about how I want to approach it…. To see if we’ll be doing it as a family. As Matryoshka pointed out to me this morning– I think ultimate rigidity and deprivation in this would be a mistake. I want to think about it. Seems to me though that “30 days of nothing” has the potential to reward us with a “whole lot of something”! If you decide that the money you find/save would make a good donation to a charitable cause here are a couple of sites– there are so many
Let me know if you decide to try this too! I’d love to talk to you about your experience. I will let you know how our journey progresses occasionally.
If you want to give it a try too and would like a button for your blog– here’s the code for mine ( courtesy of Jim)
<a href="http://knitting-gnome.com/blog/?p=715"><img title="30 days" src="http://www.dawndoran.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/30-days1.jpg" alt="Thirty days of nothing" height="133" width="176"></a>
my mind is reeling from this…but in a good and slightly caffeinated way.
This has given me a lot to think about. I don’t know if right now we’re in a place to go completely without, but you have given me a lot to think of over the next couple days.
I love this idea. We have done technology fasts-30 days without internet and TV and it is a highly enlightening process. We always stop buying now to prepare for Christmas, but this goes further. We’ll definitely discuss this as a family. Thanks as always for sharing!