Valentine's Day. Whether you like it or hate it, it means buying something for someone, be it a sweetheart, your parents or your kids. This year, we opted out of sappy cards. Not that we don't like them, but most cards end up in the recycle bin anyway after a cursory glance. So maybe we don't live or die over getting them and it conveniently falls under the "not necessary" clause. We didn't do them this year.

However! My husband did get me some lovely carnations. I suppose that might fall vaguely under the new item being purchased, but I didn't buy them... and he's been making noises about not wanting to be held to the same experiment as me. I think he's being a chicken about it. Either way, once the flowers have begun to wilt, I'll trot them out to the compost pile, so they replenish the Earth, and my garden!

As for him, I did give him a gift. I made him chocolate dipped strawberries. I also picked up a bottle of champagne, then turned off the computer. Nothing says love like time spent with your sweetheart! We had a nice evening cuddling on the couch, sipping champagne and snacking berries. I think this may have been the best Valentine's Day yet.

Today marks the twelfth anniversary of the birth of my daughter. We were pretty happy to have a girl. I was anticipating all the adorable girly stuff I could dress her up in. It seems she had the same idea for herself. On her first birthday, we watched with amusement, and dread, as toys were tossed over her shoulder, yet new clothing was ooooh over, and shoved into the face of each and every person present to show it off. My husband helped her change clothes at least 4 times during that one little party, and it wasn't because of cake smears.

Her fascination with clothing continues to this day. She squeals when she enters a store and makes a bee-line right to the clothing. She even goes so far to try to locate matching accessories and shoes. People ask her what she wants for gifts, and almost without fail, new clothes, or gift certificates for new clothes comes out almost immediately. In fact, most people are surprised to find that if they give her cash or a GC, she'll use it on clothing rather than toys. At her age now, it's possibly not as much of a surprise, but then... she's been like this since kindergarten.

So you can imagine my trepidation on trying to convince her that consignment clothing was just as good as the brand spanking new stuff. And I confess, I never got up the nerve to tell her, just presenting her with the stack of clothing I'd bought her. She spent the better part of an hour oohing and ahhing over the clothes, squealing with delight, mix and matching the pieces--and most shocking of all, declaring that she was going to take super great care of them. She even took them straight to her room to hang in her closet instead of dumping them beside her dresser, which is her usual mode of operation.

Of note, the jacket was very well received. She confessed that she was getting teased at school for still wearing her Disney princess jacket that had been a Christmas gift last year. She liked that it was "so grown up!" and looked nice on her too. My baby's growing up! Apparently, her clothes were a hit at school too. She came back from school positively radiating joy that all the girls were complimenting her clothes and telling her how pretty they were.

When I picked her up today, I realized that I'm the mother of a pre-teen girl. And that today, she looked the part.

We have a small delimma. We have a teenage boy in the house, with a bottomless pit of a stomach, and a rapidly expanding body. He hasn't grown this much since I put him to bed as a baby, with his footie jammies bent over at the toes, and when I woke him up in the morning, his feet were stretching the seams. (I still marvel that children really can grow that much overnight.)

I had a clue that I was in for trouble dressing him in December. When we held the Christmas play at Church in the middle of the month, he was still pulling the getting up on his tiptoes to edge himself taller than me. I fussed at him to quit, and the adults were teasing him that it'd be soon enough. When we got to my mother's house on Christmas Eve, the first thing she noticed was that he'd gotten taller than me. Drat!

I've been eyeing his clothes ever since, trying to figure out when he'd outgrow pants that used to be long on him, how much time I had before the shopping must happen. (And I knew at some point, it must.) Given his sister's love of clothing, and his need of it, I decided that today would be the best day to bite the bullet and get the clothes. They'll be her birthday gift, solving my delimma of what to give her without buying new.

How so? I hit the local kid's consignment shop.

I know consignment can be an iffy proposition. Sometimes the clothing can end up in less than pristine shape, or they just won't have the sizes you need. I got lucky though. There were several pairs of pants in my son's size, which I quicky nabbed, then added three shirts to the pile, just to round out his rapidly shrinking supply. Then I moved on to my daughter's set. Without going too crazy, I got her jeans, a pair of slacks, two skirts, shirts to play mix and match styles, a crisp jacket, and a lavender dress to put back for Easter.

Now, I could go into bragging about the great bargain I got on the clothes, and I did, but I'm more impressed with what I was able to find. I was doubly impressed with the gentleman who ran the shop. He took the time to help me locate what I was looking for, pointed out that winter clothing was half off (which meant most of the pants were) and even walked the clothes out to the car for me. It's just possible that I'll never go back to buying new clothes for the kids again. At least, until they're out of kid's sizes...

Already two weeks into our new experiment, and already issues have come up that make us question our lack of purchasing. It starts with something as innocent, but annoying, as a cold. Oh sure, buying medicine for sick children wasn't an issue. Heck, it wasn't even up for debate. No, the real challenge lay with me. I came down with a bug that has had me laid up in bed for a week.

I had all these glorious plans to cook out of my freezer, using up the produce we froze and making use of food in the cabinets. After all, why buy more groceries when you have plenty in the house. (Naturally dairy and produce had to be bought, but beyond that, no need. I'm great with keeping a pantry and freezer stocked.) But I just couldn't stand up to cook. Unfortunately, my husband's cooking skills consist of sandwich making and burning water. So trying to direct the dinner process from the sickbed wasn't going to work either.

Obviously, the easy solution would be the takeout/fast food option. But we swore we weren't going to do unnecessary buying. One side of the argument was that with the cook in the family out of commission, the fast food route was a necessity. We have a teen boy who might chew on his younger sister's leg if he's not fed regularly.

Fortunately, I'd cooked a huge batch of black bean soup to be eaten for my lunch for the week. Instead, that went to be dinner for one night, and then lunch for the hubby on another couple of days. I taught him how to make mashed potatoes, and snuck some fish filets into the oven. All he had to do was pull them out of the oven when they were done, add some green leafies to the plate, and dinner was served. One night was leftovers from the weekend. That curried chicken was great the second time around and only required rice to go into the rice cooker. Pasta, the man can cook, and we had sauce and meatballs in the house. So he whipped up that, all on his own. Somehow, we managed to survive the week, and without burning the house down.

I'm grateful though, that I'm feeling better and back on my feet. I had frozen strawberries in my freezer that needed to be eaten, and I've got a burning desire to convert them into a nice strawberry cheesecake.

Something about paying the bills makes me cringe inside. Alright, so it happens to everyone, but signing away our money to this, that and the other can feel very discouraging. Especially in today's economy where it feels like prices are rising all over the place. I suppose it irks me the most when I feel like I'm spending money on something I don't need or use.

So in the spirit of not buying anything unnecessary, we have trimmed another bill out of our household budget today. I canceled the satellite service. "What?! No TV?!" you ask. That's right, we cut the TV.

This wasn't an impulsive decision for us. We've been kicking around doing this for about eight months now. As it stands, we don't actually watch TV. We're more likely to watch something from Netflix or YouTube when we're in the mood for visual fodder entertainment. The only television viewing that happens around here is my daughter's Pokemon habit on Saturday mornings. It seems sort of stupid to pay $35 a month for 2 hours of cartoons total. We never got into the American Idol or Survivor craze anyway. In fact, last popular series we did watch was Survivor, and well, Brad was a loser and picked no one. What a letdown.

I suppose in a way, we're cutting ourself off from mainstream culture, but are we really if we weren't absorbed in it anyway? Regardless, the dirty deed is done. I don't expect us to suddenly start playing chess by candlelight or something like that for evening entertainment. In fact, I doubt we'll even notice it's gone.

We've come to a very interesting intersection in our lives. We have a teenager who does not want to buy into the "nothing new" purchasing. In short, he got a crazy amount of iTunes gift cards for Christmas, and could therefore purchase whatever music he wants from there. When I suggested this to him, he told me no, because he wants the CD in hand. More clutter and stuff in the house. Why he wants the CD when he's just going to turn around, put it on his iPod, then forget it exists, I have no idea. So I attempted to compromise with him on the issue and told him that he could buy the CD used. His response? "But then it won't be new!"

Unfortunately, my son is like most all of us, including myself, that happens to like nice new things. There's something quite appealing about opening something that has never been owned or used before. After all, don't we all adore the "new car smell"?

I think sometimes we have an aversion to used, for a few reasons. There's the status of being affluent enough to buy something new, for one. But there's also a hesitancy about buying something that someone else has owned. I know when it comes to buying cars, I've always preferred new to used, because I feel more confident that I'm not buying someone else's headache. The same goes with game consoles. There had to be a reason the person sold it, right? And that reason is probably that it's not going to work for me.

I've managed to convince my son that he can get the CD used if he really wants it. But I wasn't letting him get it new. We talked about why we're choosing to forgo anything new for the year. He thinks we're crazy, but he agreed to go along with it. Hopefully when the year is up, he'll have taken something away from the experience aside from "my parents are nuts."

While getting ready for school this morning, my daughter brought up what could potentially be the first major wrench in our new-purchase-free year. Her birthday is in two weeks. For myself, I don't mind getting used items, if I can get them for a better price than I could have new. But she's a tweenaged girl, and convincing her that clothes and other items shouldn't be brand, sparkly new is a trick.

Typically, we'll take the kids to Chuck E. Cheese for their birthday and let them take a friend along on the day of their birthday, and then allow them to have a party too. But throwing a party involves buying a lot of junk food, and a cake. The Chuckmeister involves playing games that are over faster than it takes to earn the money to pay for them. In years past, we've managed by taking advantage of free token coupons, but we don't have them this year. Besides, it seems excessive to do the pizza joint and then have a party. From the complaints I've gotten from extended family, they consider this too much and spoiling the children.

I don't want to deny her a birthday celebration, but on the other hand, I want her to develop an appreciation for living a life with less stuff too. So when she gets home tonight, we'll talk over dinner about what she really wants for her birthday, in terms of celebration and gifts. She may not get everything she wants, but we'll work it out so that she feels loved, while we stick to a simpler year.

Snow day! Man how I used to love those words as a kid! This is the second day off due to the snow for my children, and I'm ready for the school to be open again.

The snow has presented a new challenge for me: trying to figure out what to feed the children. I had our meals planned for the week, but that didn't involve snow contingency lunches. My choices in the house are to try to scrounge enough in the cabinets to put something together, convince them to eat leftovers, or brave the snow and do a quickie run to Taco Bell for cheap eats. To be honest, there's a great temptation to do the Bell and be done with it, but we've made a commitment not to spend unnecessarily. Which brings me back to scrounging or leftovers. My son wouldn't care on the leftovers point, but my daughter is picky and just won't touch them.

Luckily, I've got pasta in the house, and the makings for cheese sauce. I really hadn't planned on cooking extra lunches this week, but then, I really hadn't planned on snow interrupting my day either. So, fast food avoided, it's pasta in cheese sauce for lunch.

I think in the future, we'll need to talk about where eating out falls into this plan of ours.

Today, we took our first step towards eliminating something unnecessary from our house. I canceled my membership at the gym. This isn't to say that I don't find exercise important, but it's been months since I was in there, despite any of my good intentions. Why continue to pay for a service that I am not using at all? And while I could argue that I should make the effort to go anyway, it simply isn't happening in this season of my life.

Also, I've got plenty of exercise paraphernalia in my home. I have a treadmill, that while loud and ugly, is still quite serviceable and collecting dust in my basement. Should I purge it from the house? Possibly. But for the time being, we're going to dust it off and give it a go. Also, we have a gazelle in the house for working out while watching TV. I've also got quite the collection of exercise videos an basic workout equipment like a balance ball and a tension band. Sure, I need to make use of them, but they're here, and make the gym membership an unnecessary waste of money for us.

Best of all, spring is just around the corner. I'm already starting to plan my garden for this year, and I've got a battle plan to defeat the bunnies. If there's one thing I have learned, it's that digging, planting and tending a garden is a form of exercise all in it's own. And when it comes down to it, I'd rather that the activity in my life be of the natural variety, working in my garden, taking walks, going for a swim. (We do after all have a swimming pool in the backyard.) There's something unappealing about an indoor room with a huge crowd of sweaty women trying to burn off inches. I'll take the trees and sun.

This is something my husband and I have talked about once in a while: the idea of going on a buying diet. I heard a couple of years ago about a group that spent a year not buying anything new. Some of them took it pretty excessively from what I read, while others dropped out. People asked crazy questions like "What about toilet paper?" Even with all of that, there has been the appeal of being brave enough to drop out of the consumerism that is such a major part of the American culture and just take things easy. With the turn in the economy for the worst, this seems like the ideal time to try it, save money and test our mettle all in one shot.

Today is the first day of the Chinese New Year. Since we missed starting this little venture on the first day of 2009, why not kick it off with the Year of the Ox?

So what are we aiming to do exactly? Our intent is to buy nothing new or unnecessary for one whole year. Why nothing new? Too many goods these days are made with disposablity in mind. Manufacturers intend for them to break, so that we re-buy them because as a society, it's easier and faster to buy another than to have them repaired. This is our personal boycott from the consumerism cycle. Nothing unnecessary? Why did we choose that too? Too often, we convince ourselves that we need something that we truly don't. We decided that if we are going to step out of the buying for entertainment cycle, we should apply that in earnest. Especially since I'm a known bargain hunter and will buy stuff we don't need if it's a good bargain.

Sure, we'll be buying food and toilet paper brand spanking new. But for one year, we're going to sit back, and make the most of what we have.