Nowhere in this photo is there a jar of organic peanut butter and a box of chai tea. I wanted them. I held them in my hand. I thought about how wonderful it would be to make a Thai-inspired peanut sauce to accompany the broccoli I have in the fridge, and to drink hot chai tea in our cold house. But sales were slow at the craft fair this weekend, and peanut butter and chai would have added another ten dollars to my grocery bill. So I didn't buy them.
And...um...that's what this blog is about.
I decided to keep this record of everything I buy--and sometimes don't buy--for a couple of reasons. First, like just about everyone I know, I'm having trouble paying my bills and am wondering where I might be frittering money away. Second, I like to think of myself as someone who uses my money ethically, but is it really true? A close look might reveal otherwise.
And why make it public? I thought maybe someone out there would be interested. There are a lot of us who are watching our budgets carefully, almost obsessively. And it's an exercise in honesty: you learn a lot about someone by knowing their spending habits. I also wonder if knowing I'm going to blog every purchase will cause me to think twice before opening my wallet. Would I really want to post that I'd just bought, I don't know, false eyelashes and a pound of salami?
As it happens, today was an unusually virtuous shopping day. I shopped like a saint. I bought all organic food; I supported local farmers and our local co-op; everything was nutritious and vegan. I didn't even consume any gasoline because I walked to the co-op.
And yet--just so you know the demons I battle--my very first thought after deciding to start this blog was, "I'll need to buy a blackboard to keep track of everything." Yeah, I resisted. For today.
