Unchained living perhaps not conducive to frugality

Today the little bear and I were going a bit stir crazy and bored, and for me the best method of combatting boredom is to spend money I don't have, then get stressed out about being poor. So we packed ourselves up in the car and headed off to Paddington's Green Precinct for a spot of righteous retail therapy. Also, remember yesterday that I said I needed pyjamas for the little one now it's getting a bit chilly - this was ostensibly the purpose of my wanderings, but really I just needed to get out the house and look at some lovely things.

We pottered along and in and out of a few places, all of which were small and independent. One was a retro clothes shop which I had to remove myself from sharpish as they were selling fur, which generally makes me want to copiously vomit everywhere. I had a slightly more successful trip to Biome, where I purchased The Complete Idiot's Guide to Green Cleaning, and some wild soapnuts. Apparently trying to live unchained brings out the even more rampant hippy in me... but I figured that trying out new things, and trying to make our own cleaning products can only help shed the shackles we live under... right?

I thought I'd pay lip service to my intentions to buy some pyjamas for the bear, and went into some BEAUTIFUL shops with just wonderful things for babies & children (Cocoon, Bliss EcoWear). Whilst undoubtedly independent and unchained, and places that I could happily have spent hours and hours and hundreds of dollars in, I had to frogmarch myself out pretty quickly. I found some lovely pyjamas for the little one, but I just couldn't justify spending $30-40 on something for her, when I had bought her last pair in K-Mart for $10. This is a quandry. I don't imagine there are many unchained independent clothes shops which sell cheap & cheerfuls out there. It's not like she's going to have to go naked, because we're only doing this for a month, but it does show that living independently might not necessarily also mean living frugally.

This also made me ponder that perhaps trying to live unchained is having some sort of knock on effect on us elsewhere - it seems to have morphed into also meaning trying to make ethical purchases: for instance, in our arbitrary rules we state that buying mass produced products from an independent retailer is OK, because we are supporting an unchained retailer. However, we seem to suddenly and spontaneously be trying to not purchase anything made by Nestle. The boycott of Nestle is well documented, and I won't go into it here, and it's something we've flirted with before, but it really requires tons of discipline and knowledge, because it does feel like Nestle manufacture or own everything in the world. Not sure how we'll go with this one, but I think it's interesting that this little project is kind of morphing into something else already.

Unchain my thoughts, set me free....

It can be hard to change your thought process about what you need to do/buy in a day when you are trying to live an unchained life. Last night I was trying out my new sewing machine for the first time, and had to drag our big kitchen table over to a different wall in order to access the plug socket. Stu said to me 'why don't you pop to Bunnings tomorrow to pick up an extension lead'. We both had to pause for a moment to work out why this just didn't seem right...

The weather has turned colder now in Brisbane, and we don't have much in the way of cover up clothing for the baby, so I caught myself thinking 'I'll just pop to K-Mart to get her some more pyjamas'. Another no-no. Now this one IS going to be tough - I don't want to be going to exclusive baby boutiques to buy jamas for a 4 month old, but I can't think of anywhere cheap and cheerful that isn't a chain. Hmmmm...

At some point also I need to shop for groceries. I took the little one for her jabs this morning and she has been a bit sad ever since, so I didn't have the heart today, but we're running out of excuses. Oh, and food.