2011$ Challenge Take 2

Sunday, 16 January 2011

Ok, so after some feedback suggesting that an $11 limit would actually be an excuse to spend money not save money I've modified the challenge.

 I resolve not to spend ANY money on clothes until January 11th of 2012 except for underwear and specialised sporting equipment including running shoes. 

This is really my original thought anyway but I was worried about the underwear factor which is why I had given myself the $11 limit - but if I spent my time looking for <$11 bargains it would sort of defeat the purpose of freeing myself from clothes consumption. Also the more I think about it the more I recon it's probably the really cheap clothes which use the most exploitative labour. Which brings me to a question I've been asked a few times already - why am I doing this?

Well it's not for one single reason, it's for a combination of a few in no particular order:

1) to save money
2) to reduce unnecessary consumption (of resources, labour etc etc)
3) to challenge myself and change how I go about my normal way of life. 

I am sure I have more clothes than I need - most of us probably do ! So maybe I will find out what I really need as compared to what I really think I need?

So that's why.  And I love a challenge.  Tracy is joining me (and she was responsible for re-thinking the original challenge) and even Denny is joining me although she claims she can't survive on spending no money as she has to maintain  (what I consider) a high standard of work attire as she is only in a temporary position. So she is doing the challenge with a provision of a total of $211 contingency money in case she washes some work trousers with a nappy or some other kind of emergency.

So who else is joining us? 

There's 3 ways in which you could do it :

a) the whole hog - i.e. no clothes until 11th Jan 2012 except for running shoes and specialised sporting equipment

b) most of the hog - option (a) with a $211 contingency

c) a smaller sort of pig but still a pig - a $2011 limit on your total spend for the year. includes underwear.

Come on - join us! It will be fun and we'll feel good for doing it.

One last question - what about sunglasses - are they clothing?