Our consumer greed and waste.

The last few months have been one long purging spree here at the Bulmer house. I have been filling garbage bag after garbage bag with items to throw out, donate or pass along to family. I have gotten rid of about 10-12 bags full of everything from clothes to toys to kitchen utensils. We have also thrown out a broken glider rocker, an area rug and a broken fish tank.

Yesterday a pulled out a large shopping bag full of shoes from the shoe closet (which I had just cleaned out 2 months earlier) and Trev pulled out half a garbage bag full of clothes from his closet. Today I filled the other half of the garbage bag with clothes from my dresser and closet. We had just donated clothes last month.

This led me to wonder where is all this "stuff" coming from?!? How can I still be pulling out entire bags of things we truly do not use? What's even more sad is the fact that some of the clothes we gave away were purchased less then a year a go. Still in perfect shape, and hardly worn. A few items were gifts, but most we had bought ourselves.

My next thought was WOW, how much money have we wasted on these things we don't even use? It's sort of a scary thought when you think about it. 12 bags of stuff is a lot. The dollar value in that would be quite substantial. How much better off would our family be if we didn't waste money on foolish purchases?

We asked Jacob to clean out his toys before Christmas to make room for the new ones he will undoubtedly receive (seriously, there was no room to put anymore!). After ridding the house of a garbage bag full of toys and looking around thinking "ahh this is all he really needs" is was actually disheartening to realize in one short month there will be even more toys invading our space.

This of course led me to ponder Christmas. How many times do we trudge through the malls buying something, anything to complete our christmas list so we can go home and dwell on how we spent too much money? Sadly, in a lot of cases we are probably spending that money on something that will be thrown out or donated within the next year!

There is nothing less satisfying then spending your money on something just for the sake of buying "something" so you have a gift to give. It doesn't promote a spirit of giving and joy with you or the person you are giving too. This beautiful holiday which was designed to celebrate the birth of our Lord and saviour has become nothing more then a commercialized holiday which promotes over spending, debt, stress and depression.

We have started making about 60 percent of our Christmas gifts and every year I strive to make more. A lot of it is baking, I know this isn't just sitting around cluttering peoples homes. I also give out aesthetic services like pedicures and waxing. We have started to feel less financial stress at Christmas and more joy. We remember the reason for the season a lot more.

Now we just need to become less materialistic over the rest of the year. No more impulse purchases, no more shopping on a whim, and no more spending just for fun! This is my (very) early New Years resolution!