Bought no new things today.
Last night after writing my posting about Joel's wood purchase I turned again to Levine's *Not Buying It* (which I am reading exceptionally slowly--a few pages a day only--because it is not the sort of book one zooms through) and I came across the following passage:
"Paul brings home $500 worth of Mill's Pride coated particle board closet drawers, shelves, dividers, and poles from Home Depot. It's a permissible purchase, since it's part of the new construction" (189).
This is written by a woman, you may recall, who is buying next to nothing for *an entire year*; she and her partner, Paul, don't go to cafes, they don't go to restaurants, they don't go to movies, or music events, or theatre. They don't buy wine! And yet she breezily announces on p. 189 that wood is okay! I almost leapt out of bed to update my blog immediately. I must have missed this exemption when she noted it at the beginning of the book because I don't remember anything about it. We're doing nothing even remotely close to what Levine and her partner did. And yet if we take our guidelines from the strictest, austerest of the strict and austere: wood is okay!
This evening, at any rate, I thought it was more than okay. Joel showed me what he'd been making in the basement and it is truly spectacular. I literally could not believe he'd done it by himself. I'll try to take pictures for another post. Ted, he's even incorporated old windows into our new storage unit. It looks amazing.
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I can hardly wait to see it. You should have more pictures on the blog. Maybe things that did (or did not) get purchased. Or Ben's face when you tell him he can't have new caps for his gun.
ReplyDeleteOh dear oh dear, oh deary me.
ReplyDeleteThere's a fatal flaw in allowing wood - it is very susceptible to the slippery-slope argument.
If a little wood is fine, then you've got to allow for a few nails as well - you wouldn't want to reuse old rusty nails. But nails require mining iron ore, so obviously there's nothing wrong with buying some new things made of iron either. Particle board can't be excluded either, can it. Panes of glass... light bulbs.... next thing you know you have a new car and a new house.
This "wood is allowed" thing has to be refined somewhat.
True, true. Oddly I just wrote about a different slippery slope in my posting today and then read your comment. It does make sense, though, to buy wood to *make* something you need instead of buying that thing new. Same logic applies to food: better to make it yourself (because then you know what goes into it) than to buy it prepared. In most cases. And if you like cooking. Or making things. Joel and I were watching Junk Raiders the other night and their stumbling block in their "no new things" construction was WOOD! But they did get around it (so far, as of episode 5).
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