Monday 1 August 2011

Challenge of the Utmost Kind - update

As you may remember since last October I have been taking part in a challenge, inspired by Dotty Angel, to buy only second-hand or hand-made goods for myself and home for one whole year. There are only 2 months left of my challenge and I'm happy to say it's been a huge success. I've become much more aware of what I buy and my attitude as a consumer has completely changed. I no longer buy whatever I feel like without a minutes thought.


I can't say that I've stuck to the challenge 100% unfortunately. I've bought a couple of items of clothing to fit my expanding belly and I've bought a couple of pregnancy books that weren't second hand. However, apart from these few items I've stuck completely to hand made or second-hand. That is apart from things for the baby! I decided early on that it would be impossible to stick completely to the challenge when it comes to shopping for the baby. There are certain things that I wanted to buy new such as car seat, crib and mattress, pram. I've bought a few new bits of clothing but only the bare minimum and I've been given a lot of things second hand. Anything I do buy new I try to stick to my green principles and consider where the item has been made and what it's been made of. I'll be doing another post on my 'eco-friendly' baby preparations some time soon. 

Overall, it's proving to be an extremely rewarding experience and although the challenge officially ends in a couple of months I'm pretty sure that I'll continue on with my new spending habits. 


4 comments:

siniann said...

This is amazing, I think I should add this to my decision too. Just to buy second hand or hand-made, when I need. Was this easy in Italy, is there many second-hand shops or did you use internet? If you have good links, please share :)

It's also safety first, when buying things for baby (like the car seat) you don't always know if it's still safe enough for the car. But clothes are easy to find, I would do that too.


Bravo Sarah! :)

Sarah Elizabeth said...

There aren't many second hand shops in Italy for things like clothes although there are plenty of flea markets for finding things for the home. Rather than buying second hand clothes I just haven't bought any clothes! I've been making do with what I already have. You're right about the baby things though, safety comes first when it comes to car seats etc. Good luck with your shopping ban! x x

Kristin H said...

I admire you deeply!!! New follower!!!

Sarah said...

Here in France, when I was pregnant, I had friends asking me if I wanted to take their baby clothes off their hands.

When I had finished with them I passed them on too in one of those cosy sisterhood mutual helping out actions that women do so well.