The Modified Compact Revisited

At the start of the summer, with three kids going into camp or daycare (and the resulting costs), an oil spill gushing in the ocean and making it clear our days of relying on petroleum are numbered, and having felt more and more convicted about traveling more gently on the earth, I entered a modified compact.
Max and Tommy are back in school, and my 10-week experiment is over. How did it go? Here's what didn't go strictly according to plan:

• Let's get this out of the way immediately. I bought an iPad. Some of the motivation had to do with my job and being conversant in new forms of e-publishing and understanding what some have touted game-changing technology. But it would be disingenuous to say my boss told me she'd fire me if I didn't have an iPad. And, as you can guess, I didn't get this on Craig's List or at a garage sale.
• When traveling for work, a publishing partner took us to a strip of new, locally owned shops and I bought this t-shirt because it made me laugh out loud, it was on sale, and I felt okay supporting the shop and the local goods.

• I had not one but two benders at Fabric.com, my newest vice. I swore I wouldn't succumb to the $3/yard sales, but when some designer fabrics dropped to $2.50, I succumbed. I'm weak. I'll admit that. I convinced myself I was just buying it to make gifts for others.

What did go well, and was surprisingly easy:

• I didn't buy new clothes for myself or the kids.
• I didn't buy physical books, although read some good ones on my Kindle.
• I didn't buy new, nonconsumable gifts. I bought my dad some asparagus plants for his birthday. I bought Phil consumables for Father's Day and his birthday, and made him a gift. I made gifts for other family members who had summer birthdays, but I've yet to get them in the mail. I promise guys, they're coming!
• I didn't even have to buy new canning supplies for the garden -- a loophole I'd left myself. A co-worker with a toddler, who has no time for canning these days, brought me some jars that were collecting dust in her house. (Thanks, Melody!)

Phil and I have a pretty simple budgeting method: We pay our bills and ourselves first, and scrape off any extra money in checking to go into savings, or, if checking's tight, stop spending. So I can't tell you to the penny whether the compact actually saved money. Also, our income this summer was a little atypical, with the iPad purchased from an unsalaried windfall, so I would have to do some heavy number crunching that I don't have the patience or time for to see whether this made a financial impact.

But it's definitely showed me that (iPad notwithstanding), new isn't always necessary.

Compact Update: Can You Live Without New?

I started a modified Compact a couple weeks ago, trying to lessen my environmental impact by limiting my purchase of new products. Overall, not a biggie, although I was sad to get a 15% off birthday coupon (with a wacky birthday candle necklace) from Anthropologie and realized I'd be breaking my Compact to have a girly birthday bender. Oh, how I love Anthropologie.

My hope was that a by-product of the Compact would be saving some money, although it wasn't my primary goal.

Today. Oy, today. I had a 7:15 am flight to get to a lunch meeting in DC. I was getting into the city early enough to meet one of our publishing partners for a casual meeting before the lunch meeting, so had a couple pieces of business during my in-and-out trip. I got to the gate at 6:30 a.m. just in time for the announcement that the flight was delayed two hours due to mechanical issues, so cancelled my first meeting. Four delays later, I was not going to make even my lunch meeting and threw in the towel. I decided to work the remaining day from home.

On the drive home from the airport, I happened upon two yard sales. The first was an annual event some neighbors throw to benefit charity. The second was a family fundraiser to fund an upcoming trip to celebrate the mom being five years cancer free.

Total, I spent $20 at the two sales, and here's what I bought:

• Small stoneware brownie pan
• Pizza stone (we broke ours two days ago)
• Vera Bradley glasses case
• 2 glass piggy banks -- the kind you have to break to get the money; Sylvie has one, so these were for the boys
• Vintage fabric cut into three-inch squares that I'm going to use to make a quilt for Sylvie
• Vintage sewing notions, like rickrack with its original 10-cent price sticker
• Glow-in-the-dark Perler bead kit for the boys
• Leather Coach backpack
• A yet-to-be-revealed Father's Day gift
• Jeans for Sylvia
• Spiderman action car for Tommy's Spiderman action figures
• New package of sewing machine needles
• Three-piece food mill for making applesauce
• 2 DVDs for the boys (Mythbusters and Superman Returns)

The biggest-ticket item was the Coach backpack at $5. I'd coveted this backpack at Coach stores in years past. I think it retails for somewhere between $300 and $400. The yard-sale edition had no wear, and cost less than the Venti Skinny Cinnamon Latte I'd bought in the terminal after the second delay was announced.

Not too shabby. And not too much suffering, despite eschewing new products. I might keep up this Compact thing after the summer.

The Modified Compact

I've been reading a lot about The Compact. Which sounds like a new John Grisham novel. But it's not.

The Compact began in California as a challenge between ten friends looking to cut down on their material consumption by purchasing nothing new (with a few exceptions) for a year. The goals were to counteract the American consumer culture, to cut down on their own personal waste and clutter, and to live more simply. Thousands of people have since joined the Compact, many extending it long past that first year. Members range from the casual to Freegans, who try to pay for nothing through means like dumpster diving behind restaurants for their food.

Many blogs document various Compact participants and their personal journeys in their Compact lifestyles; my favorite so far is the Nonconsumer Advocate. I can relate to the author's commitment to the Compact, as well as her drawing the line at used undergarments.

In the wake of the ongoing BP underwater oil gush, it's been shocking to read about the amount of oil that is used to create and transport goods. I feel convicted that I need to be more responsible and to go beyond just bringing my own tote bags to the store. I need to be mindful about even going to the store.

Yesterday I was canning jam with my friend Martha. If you're curious, we made strawberry, strawberry-jalapeno, and strawberry chutney -- notice a theme? Anyhoo, we've been friends for 20 years, and we were post-college poor singles at the same time, and share a love of the bargain. I told her I was thinking about doing a modified Compact, and she said, "Um... isn't that kind of what you already do?" I looked down and saw what she meant. My shirt, tank, and earrings were all from garage sales. My shoes were new, but they are Dansko's and built for life. She reminded me that most of Phil and my barware is vintage 60s. We've been eating off vintage Fiesta (and likely now glow from the lead paint) for about 15 years. Sylvia and Tommy were there with me, and both were wearing garage-sale duds.

"Why do you need to do anything formal?" she asked. I took another sip of wine and agreed.

But the more I thought of it, the more I thought that my garage-sale earrings weren't the whole story, and there's a lot I buy new that is unnecessary or completely wasteful. We're entering the most expensive time of year with Max out of school and requiring another $400 a month over the summer for day camp. And yes, for those of you not living in the Midwest, I realize how insanely cheap that is. But still.

So with the motivation of an extra $400 going out the door, and really wanting to be more mindful about what we bring into our house and the virgin materials necessary, I've made my own Compact in force for the next 10 weeks, starting tomorrow. Meaning I have an hour and 17 minutes to go crazy on Anthropologie.com. Here are my guidelines:

• This compact is mine. Phil is on his own, and I won't cluck my tongue if he has a bender at Luna Music. That's his business. Maybe he'll even buy me something during his bender. Just saying...
• Undergarments can be purchased new. I'm unbending on this point.
• E-products can be purchased new. I am in the book business and staunchly support the purchase of information and entertainment. So books that are sent to my Kindle and don't require sacrificing trees or transportation costs are just fine.
• Items needed to finish up craft projects are okay. So if I'm about to make a dress for Sylvie out of stash fabric, but need some medium-weight interfacing, I can go to town. $3-a-yard clearances on Amy Butler fabric at Fabric.com don't count as "items needed to finish up craft projects." No matter how hard I'll try to convince myself otherwise.
• Likewise, items truly needed for the summer gardening season are at my discretion. I know I'm low on canning jars, so will try to get some through Freecycle.org. If that doesn't work, however, and I'm about to lose a crop of tomatoes that need to be preserved, I'm getting new jars. This doesn't extend to the rose structure I'm coveting.

So really not too bad for 10 weeks. And really not too different from the way we already live. I'm excited and curious to see if putting stricter parameters around what I can and can't purchase will make me realize how much money I've been wasting and how much more ecologically responsible I could be.

One hour and eight minutes and counting....