Rewilding in 2022: 2nd Progress Report - Touching the Wild

This season, I went vegetarian. I'd been kicking the idea around for a while, and my close friend Alice stopped eating meat after working in packing for an online food shop over Christmas and being slightly freaked out by the vast scale of naked, shrink-wrapped poultry she was faced with night after night. I'd tried to cut down my meat for a while, but found that, in a bid to prove to Dai that I wasn't 'depriving myself', the consequence was that I actually ended up eating more meat.

Then I took the Spud to visit some farm animals. The Spud has this real thing about sheep, and after a morning of watching him cuddle the lambs and brush their soft baby fleeces and feed them a milk bottle... Well, I was ruined for the Sunday roast, that was for sure. It's not been an easy adjustment in a mixed household where we generally all eat together, but I just can't eat meat any more, so we'll have to get to grips with it.

It could be argued that a vegetarian diet doesn't work well alongside a plan to rewild. Our ancestors, and many indigenous peoples around the world, of course eat meat, and any attempt to hark back to a less artificially complex, less industrialised lifestyle would surely involve some sustainable meat or game? I can see the logic in this argument, but even if I wanted to keep eating dead creatures for my own sensory pleasure, which I don't, we are also facing a looming climate crisis, and as an environmentalist I really can't justify personally eating meat either. So. There we go. I guess it's a modern, millennial kind of rewilding that I am doing here. But I'll take it!

Leena Norms has an absolutely fab, entirely non-judgemental, non-pushy video which sums up a lot of my reasoning around choosing this diet - here it is. 

One conflict I had this season was fairly laughable. In general we're not a daytime TV household, but I found that when I wanted to roll out my yoga mat in the morning, the best way to avoid being maimed by a toddler trying to "help" me into my poses was to flick Bluey on for half an hour. Except, when I then wanted to turn Bluey off again so we could get on with our day, all hell broke loose. Navigating the storms of tantrums and tears each morning made the yoga practice much less relaxing than it should have been (and the sound of Bluey and Bingo chirping away in the background was surprisingly hard to tune out during savasana), but I had noticed a difference in my strength and flexibility after only a few weeks of fairly disciplined home practice, and really wanted to keep going with it. Attempts to encourage the Spud into the garden or sandpit instead were met with dismissal on all but the sunniest of days. I'll let you know if I ever find a solution to this one!

On the topic of the garden, my feral approach to gardening was providing some interesting results. In the spring we discovered that our garden was full of bluebells, and I thanked my lucky stars that I hadn't just gone blundering in and weeded away everything in sight. It was also full of stinging nettles, but I was quite reluctant to pull those out, much to the confusion of visitors, as I had read that they're an important habitat for caterpillars and butterflies.

Our bird feeder had finally caught on amongst the local bird community, and we were welcoming blue tits, robins, blackbirds, and a variety of little brown guys that I'm not quick enough to tell apart. Unfortunately, the birds also ate our peas and beans, and the feeder also attracted a sleek, golden-brown rat, who at time of writing has taken up residence under our shed and can often be seen sitting beside our humane rat trap with what I'm certain is amusement. I know rats in the garden aren't ideal, but I'm reluctant to introduce poison into the environment, especially with my child around. It's also not the rat's fault we don't want it there, so we're persevering with humane traps and deterrents for now. We also have a resident hedgehog, which really surprised me as we live quite centrally in town and border a busy road. And a squirrel who races through the trees every morning as if commuting to work. 

Unfortunately we also have a large number of field mice, who set up camp in the house (and ate my husband's Easter eggs, much to his disappointment) - we tried catching them and releasing them far away, but they bred faster than we could trap them. Eventually we found ourselves adopting two lovely cats from someone who couldn't keep them any more. Dai mainly wanted a rodent deterrent, as sweeping up mouse poo is no one's idea of a good time. The Spud and I were excited to have family pets to stroke and fuss over. So everyone wins.

Social media has been my biggest bugbear lately. I've now got two different apps on my phone to try to help me manage my usage, and I find that I'm either turning them off, uninstalling them when they prove inconvenient, or simply opening social media in my tablet browser. This is such a big step backwards and I'm really not enjoying it. I don't want to be the kind of person who chooses their destinations by what will make the best photo. I don't like courting followers, and in all honesty I'm slightly alarmed by my propensity for oversharing. A lot of my close friends have recently stopped using Facebook and Instagram, just as I'm probably the most active I've ever been, and I'm steeling myself to follow their example. I might lose followers. I might lose book sales. But if I carry on on this trajectory, I feel I'm losing a lot more than that.

It's not all bad news though. The defining event of this season for me was my long-anticipated wedding. It was a glorious day, made even more special by the people who came together to share the celebration with us, and on a very personal note it was really the first time I was able to see how far I've come since starting this blog. I never realised that reducing my consumption was going to be a personal development project more than a financial one, and yet over the last couple of years my confidence has skyrocketed. I've learned that no one is watching and judging me because everyone is busy judging and monitoring themselves. I've learned that perfection is overrated and boring. And I'm lucky enough to be surrounded and loved by people who are supportive, open, free-spirited and kind. 

When I realised I couldn't dance in my wedding gown I changed into a vest top and harem pants. My bra had carved red divots around my ribcage, so I decided 'sod it' and took it off. I then spent the evening dancing with my friends, or by myself, without fear or self-consciousness. At one point, on my way to the toilets, I heard the throb of music from up a flight of stairs and followed it to find a live band in the building next door, where I danced with strangers on a floor strewn with golden stars.

On the weekend of our wedding, I walked barefoot on new territory. I worked a lock on the canal. I stood atop a long barrow and felt the wind stream through my hair. I saw my friends' faces bathed in firelight; I felt the prick of bird claws on my hands and legs; I drank mead with Druids; did yoga in a yurt; danced the Macarena with a flock of Goths.

I have tasted the wild. I have found the bigger life that waited on the other side of my inhibitions. 

Dai's interest in history has helped me widen my horizons, connect to the landscape, and begin to see my home country in new ways. Parenthood has changed my sense of self and taught me the breadth and depth of my endurance and strength. Growing older has taught me about seizing the moment and forging memories with those we love. Trying to reduce my consumption has led me to an animistic worldview and re-engaged my creativity.

Now that I have touched the edges of the kind of life I want to be living, I am more determined than ever to get there. I love the person I am becoming, and I am so excited to see what comes next.

Inspirational reads this season:

Strong, Calm and Free by Nicola Jane Hobbs

Dandelion Hunter by Rebecca Lerner

Going Zero by Kate Hughes

Sustainable Minimalism by Stephanie Marie Seferian

The Planet-Friendly Kitchen by Karen Edwards

A Dream Told Me To Go Shopping

I broke my shopping ban.

And so, the endlessly frustrating cycle continues. 

I bought two summery crop tops from a sustainable fashion stall at a local vegan market. In my defense, the Spud had uncharacteristically been a complete hellion the entire morning and I was nearly at my wits' end - I can see why I succumbed to the little voice in the back of my brain whispering, "Go on, you need a treat, those colours are so pretty, you hardly have any summer tops..."

The second incident was actually on my wedding night. I had wandered into the pub next door where a band was playing. I immediately loved their vibe and when the set finished I stopped to chat with them over a suitcase full of merch. I bought an album and a top with the band name and logo on (it's a primrose yellow tube top, which is slightly out of my comfort zone, so I did make a point of wearing it the next day). 

I think that kind of opened the floodgates, because over the next couple of days I bought another T-shirt and a pair of majestic tasselled earrings. Then at full moon I had a bit of a Vinted and Etsy splurge, which isn't quite as bad as it sounds - most of my purchases were things I'd bookmarked months ago, or necessary items, such as a water- and windproof jacket for our trip to Shetland in the autumn.

But, realistically, looking ahead to the medieval market we were planning to visit the next weekend, my upcoming trip to Brighton with my best friend, and the annual delights of our trip to St David's, I had to accept that my incredible restraint in Glastonbury was starting to look like a one-off. I decided instead to write myself a shopping list of things I wanted and/or needed, and channel myself into hunting the exact right things rather than risking the scattershot approach. In between those three dates I determined to stop browsing anywhere else, and after St David's I would have one Absolute Last Damn Try at the no-buy challenge.

Except it kind of didn't work that way, but hear me out. A couple of nights before the medieval market, I had a dream about an item of clothing I used to have, but had charity shopped and then regretted during my 'must be invisible' clearout. I've tried and failed to find the same item a few times over the years - it was mass-produced, but it's no longer manufactured and hasn't turned up on eBay.

When we got to the market we took a detour to find a public convenience, and found a handful of stalls outside the market grounds which we might not have otherwise noticed. And I saw this item hanging from the back of one of the stalls! I rushed over and grabbed it immediately. It was my size, and the only one left. And half the price I'd originally paid. 

Now I know the more practical-minded among you will be rolling your eyes at me reading anything into this. So I will simply say that the day after the market I had a coffee and a chat with one of my best friends. Alice has had her own issues with money and with shopping over the years, so I felt comfortable to explain that I wanted to be really thoughtful and careful about my purchases on our Brighton trip - but that, despite everything I've said, done and learned in the last three years, I did want to shop. 

It was a relief to talk (not write) about this so openly with her - she actually mentioned first that she wanted to make good choices and focus on needful things, which made me feel a lot calmer, knowing that on this trip I would have someone in the same boat with me!

Alice has always loved beautiful, unusual clothing - vintage, goth, and hippie styles being some of her favourites over the years -  but until fairly recently, she has bought her favourite items in sizes that don't fit, hoping to change her body. I was so pleased and proud when she cleared out this second 'aspirational' wardrobe and started buying the clothes she really wanted to wear for the body she has right now. At times her enthusiastic shopping has bordered on the alarming, and like me she has gone too far on some occasions, but as her friend it's been fantastic to watch her blossom as she expresses herself more and more. 

I've been so adamant that shopping is never the answer that it took me a while to realise that it's really been beneficial for Alice at this time. It's been amazing to see her confidence grow as she discovers and refines her style(s). Similarly, by and large the purchases and ban breaks I have made over the last couple of years have, in all honesty, given me so much joy (once the guilt of the actual purchase fades!). After years of stifling - variously - my preferences, my needs, or my interests, I really feel like I've started to come out of my shell. Some of the things I've worn, not to mention the things I've been able to do or take part in, this year in particular, are things I would have been too nervous or self-conscious to even contemplate a couple of years ago. I feel like I'm at a point of trying to really honour and celebrate my truest self, and as shallow as it sounds to admit to this, some of this change has been due to allowing myself to dress up a bit more, to enjoy clothes and make-up again.

The opposite is also true - I never would have gotten to this point without taking time out from shopping to renew my connection with nature, to get more comfortable in my own skin, and to redefine and embrace what is most important to me. But as with all things, it seems to be a question of finding the balance. 

Don't get me wrong - my end goal with this personal project is still to quit shopping, and develop a more self-sufficient, eco-friendly lifestyle. But I'm starting to think that my instinct at the beginning of this year - not to run a ban in 2022, to give myself some time without restrictions in place - was good instinct.

Maybe you will think I am making excuses or lapsing back into old ways. But I think I want to let go and trust myself for a while longer. At the medieval market, I got worried and thought I had really overspent. But when I sat down afterwards and looked at the numbers, I had bought only a few things, spent less than I thought and within sensible limits. I had bought only one thing not on my shopping list, which was the item from my dream. The items I chose were versatile, and all one-of-a-kind items made by individual artisans. Would buying nothing have actually been a better choice?

I think I want to give myself, for the remainder of this year, the gift of trust, as well as the gift of allowing myself to create the beautiful, unique, somewhat chamaeleonic, mostly thrifted wardrobe of my imaginings. Again, perhaps this is just an excuse - although it doesn't feel like it - but I think it might be easier in the future to attempt and actually complete a one-year shopping ban, if I'm starting from a point where my collection of clothing - however big or small - is representative of the person I feel I am inside. 

I do have some misgivings - I've expressly said in the past that there is no point when my wardrobe will be 'finished', and I know that there will always be temptations, but I hope that I will learn to find that point of balance and know when enough is enough. I no longer need to fit in at school, to fit into various subcultures, to impress partners or peers, or to create a certain kind of image on social media. I kind of want to give myself the freedom to enjoy the things I enjoy, before the cost of living rises to a point that I can't afford these luxuries any more.

For the first time in a very long time I feel like I'm nearly there - at last I understand how to choose, how to provide myself just enough - but not too much - variety that I can be playful and creative but not stressed or overwhelmed, what I really will wear, what feels good to wear, what makes me happy (regardless of whether it's flattering), how to appreciate and enjoy those jeans and T-shirt days as much as my dressed-up-fancy days and feel just as good about myself either way. 

I really hope I'm not deluding myself. I don't feel like I am. 

No-Buy: A Weekend in Glastonbury

Hey guys! I'm feeling pretty positive on this current incarnation of my shopping ban, and I've surprised myself a couple of times so far.

My first weekend on the shopping ban was actually a really big challenge, as we spent two nights in Glastonbury, which is chock full of temptation for me. When we originally planned the trip I confess I'd been looking forward to a Glastonbury visit with no shopping ban in place, but as the time came closer I could feel myself getting worried and uncomfortable. The thing is, I've been on so many big blow-out spending sprees over the years, I know what the aftermath is like, how long it takes me to get back on my feet financially if I overdo it, how guilty I feel having to shovel everything in my wardrobe to one side to make room for new. The high doesn't last. The repercussions do. 

All that said, there was of course still a part of me that wanted to shop. It's the same part of me who compares myself to other people, who wants to be noticed for the way I dress, for whom no wardrobe ever feels like enough because there's always this underlying sense of lack. But I know now that if I stop shopping for long enough, that feeling of something missing mysteriously dwindles away. It's imaginary.

I rocked up at Glastonbury's big Medieval Fayre feeling trepidatious. In all honesty I hadn't been able to decide how I wanted to handle this, and I spent the first hour or so on tenterhooks, waiting to feel those pangs of want!, for my contactless card to start flashing about. But that's not how it went. I looked at everything on the market. There was a necklace I liked. I couldn't afford it, so I didn't buy it. I had a cup of nettle cordial. It was pale pink and delicious. I started to relax.

We watched a joust. Dai tried his hand at axe throwing. We sampled lots of free mead. I was so bowled over by my absolute lack of desire to buy all the things that I ended up almost in a daze. Eventually I bought a blackberry lip balm for £3 and had two sparkly hair extensions put in for £1 each. Perhaps it would be more impressive if I'd stuck absolutely and totally to the letter of the ban, but I really feel like this was a big achievement for me and I'm happy with it. It didn't even take a huge massive effort not to buy piles of clothes and accessories. It didn't feel like any kind of sacrifice at all.

The people-watching, which is always on another level in Glastonbury, reminded me that I do love beautiful things and unique styles. But ironically, hiking backwards and forwards across town carrying a tired three-year-old also reminded me why I like to keep my look fairly low maintenance nowadays. I'm not afraid to try new looks and get a bit weird with it - my makeup over the weekend ranged from the full face with flicky eyeliner to nothing whatsoever to smearing some bio-glitter under my eyes and calling it a day - but I'm tired of worrying about what other people think of me. If I want to wear an antlered headdress or a flower crown then I will - but at other times I'm a shoeless scruff with mud under my nails or salt in my hair, and it's hardly photogenic but I'm done competing for the Best Dressed Weirdo Imaginary Award.

On our last day we took a walk around the shops. I love seeing displays and all the unusual things for sale, I'm still not the perfect anti-consumerist, but in all honesty there wasn't much I actually wanted to buy. I got some new candles for my altar and three books. Again, not perfect in ban terms, but for a whole day spent walking around shops filled with my every woo-woo hippie desire, I decided to cut myself some slack. Mostly I just enjoyed the sunshine and walking around with the Spud, watching the people and smelling the incense. It's quite nice that my days out no longer come with the sickly desperate feeling that accompanies spending hundreds of pounds on a whim. I'm so proud of myself for not buying clothes, I can't even tell you. (However, I am now over the book budget I set myself at the beginning of the year, so it'll be cold turkey for me from this point onwards!) 

A sidenote: I didn't actually tell Dai that I was doing another shopping ban, which I guess is a bit weird of me. I think where historically I have failed a lot at these things I wanted to see if I was going to actually stick to it before making any grand announcements. And sometimes it's easier to crack on with things if people aren't watching you and analysing your odd behaviour. Plus, around the time I started this ban I was also transitioning to vegetarianism, which had kind of unsettled Dai, as we have previously enjoyed his roast dinners or steaks together on many an evening. I suppose I didn't want him to think I was gratuitously punishing myself. (As an adult I've mainly been vegetarian or vegan; when my last long-term relationship ended I also started eating meat (several close friendships also blew up in a big way around this time - in hindsight it was possibly some kind of breakdown, let's gently gloss over that), and was still doing so when I met Dai. But I'm not comfortable with it for ethical and environmental reasons and it feels like a weight off my shoulders to just not. Dai worries about this because of my history with disordered eating, but I don't connect vegetarianism with disordered eating at all, it's not about weight or restriction in any way for me, I just don't want to eat animals.)

Overall throughout my first week I felt really good about the challenge. All the things I relished about the experience the first time around came flooding back, as I found myself less distracted, less self-conscious, more present. I found that when the urge to improve myself by making purchases came bubbling up, as it sometimes does, a bit of experimentation with make-up or a creative change of outfit could generally assuage it without difficulty. I felt more clearheaded, able to see items in shops as analogues of items I already have - oh, a necklace? I have necklaces already - rather than things I needed to accumulate to be whole.

Mixed Messages, Self-Compassion and Sage Advice (or, Buy the Damn Teacups)

On my 'memories' on my phone's photo app, a picture from two years ago popped up, and I winced. On that day, I had got dressed quickly - as I often do - and I felt so uncomfortable when we ended up visiting a busy shopping centre. I was wearing a coat I didn't like, an ill-fitting, baggy pair of men's jeans, and a jumper that was too short. However, the main reason for my wince was that I still own all three items, and in fact have worn them all this week. Seeing the words "two years ago" on my app made me feel as though I'd been doing some kind of penance.

I showed Dai, explained to him how I'd felt in the outfit, and he gave me a long look. "You need to have a word with yourself."

He was right. Except, I'm not sure exactly what words I should be having! The opposite of the words I had to have with myself when I sat down with my bank statements in 2019 and identified how serious my overshopping habit had become? The problem there was that I still spent more than I wanted to on clothes in 2021 (more than in 2020, though I imagine that's the same for everyone) and for 2022 I really wanted to reduce my spend further (realistically, it's still high, though considerably less than 2019 levels).

How could I be spending more on clothes and yet still wearing items I knew I was less than keen on? I took a good hard look at my wardrobe, and it didn't take long to discover the issue. I had been buying more of the things I always tend to buy - T-shirts, accessories, funky trousers - and plumping up some areas that had become really sparse after baby-bearing body changes - skirts, dresses - and therefore I'd completely neglected the less fun, historically difficult, or simply expensive categories - jeans, coats, jumpers (and bras). Of course, that meant that every winter I was falling back on the same old less-than-ideal things.

At least I could understand what had happened! It's often easier to find T-shirts that I like than it is anything else, so I'm more often tempted by T-shirts than any other item! And buying jeans is always a mare, more so when you're concerned about pesticide use and water use and labour standards and so forth - trying to find jeans secondhand in a particular size, fit and colour, whilst accompanied by a toddler, isn't the easiest thing, and the prices from ethical, sustainable brands can often be prohibitive on my budget. So I'd just put it off. And put it off. And put it off. Because I didn't want to go to the effort of replacing something not-quite-right with something else not-quite-right, but couldn't see how else to proceed. Meanwhile my jeans were wearing out, and I was now down to one pair, which had lasted longest simply because they were my least flattering pair. With coats, the issue was simply: cost. Can I really justify replacing a serviceable coat, even if I don't like it?

Underpinning all of this is the fact that I've been avoiding getting rid of stuff, as I've often cleared things out and then wished I hadn't...! 

You may be thinking, wow, she's overthinking this. But we live in a culture that teaches us to buy, buy, buy, and not think about it at all.

When I've discussed my attempted shopping ban with others, I have often been told that I need to be kinder to myself. Most recently when Christmas shopping - one of my friends is a jewellery maker, so I was buying some gifts from her, and I really wanted a pair of teacup earrings! I explained I was trying not to buy things for myself, and she advised, "One thing I've learned from being sick [obviously I won't elaborate on anyone else's health issues] is that you have to show yourself some compassion." I translated this to: buy the damn teacups.

However, although self-compassion is important, I'm not convinced that my right to buy things is more important than the rights of garment workers to be paid a fair wage, or for communities to have clean air and water. I feel very aware that my wants, my purchases, don't exist in a vacuum. 

Writer and activist Aja Barber said on Instagram (responding to messages about affordable clothing being a human right), "Where do our human rights end and others begin in a world where the mainstream notion of achieving affordability currently looks like systems of exploitation?"

I think, now that I have written this all down in black and white, that it might be time for me to shop. I can't afford to replace everything all at once, and certainly not from new, so it's going to be a slow process, but that's as it should be, I believe. Otherwise I'll still be wearing the same coat two years from now, and two years after that, when instead I can sell it on whilst it's still in good condition and source one I actually like to wear. And I really can't go any longer without a couple more decent bras, sheesh!

Sheila has often given me sage advice, which I am going to do my best to follow: "Self Care Isn't Selfish. Lead by example to your kid(s) - take care of yourself and express yourself. You can do this without spending a ton of money, as you know, and I love that you're all about sustainability, but love every item you put on your body! If you don't love it, let it go," and, "You're the boss of you, Katrina. It's possible to shop ethically and ensure you donate stuff you don't need. A no-shop ban helps to make us more aware of how much we buy and can help tweak bad habits, but it's not a law. It's okay to shop and support brick-and-mortar businesses."

30-Day Shopping Ban: Recharge and Reset

Towards the end of July I was feeling a bit directionless. I'd gone hard into my reading on Druidry (and other aspects and traditions of Paganism, polytheism and earth-based paths, such as Heathenry, traditional witchcraft and Wicca) and was feeling a bit... Druided out. I still felt that this was the path for me, but I'd noticed that I was starting to anticipate feeling super connected and sort of spiritual-mystical all the time, which is actually kind of exhausting.

It had been really exciting for a few months - I'd been experiencing strange synchronicities and what I can only describe as communications. I won't go into too much detail here as it's going to be in the book I'm working on (yes! and it has a publisher lined up!), but I will tell you that Dai had witnessed some of this, which happily confirmed that I wasn't actually losing my mind. At first this reaching out was a bit random and sporadic, but gradually I learned it was a two-way channel, and I began to ask questions and receive answers, mostly in images, in some instances information that would later be confirmed in books I picked up. 

It was spooky and exhilarating, but after a while I realised I was now trying really hard all the time to communicate with everything and be open, constantly striving to be a sort of antennae for signs and portents, and I actually needed a break. I felt I was losing track of the ordinary world a bit, and, as I had taken my eye off the ball, my spending - and more so, my obsessive browsing - had taken an upwards swing again. Not seriously or harmfully, but enough that I wanted to recalibrate and get a better grip on it.

I get why I was back to browsing. It was a way to switch off from being Super Mystical Druid Student Lady - a very mundane way to decompress. Reality TV would probably have served a similar function. 

Perhaps relatedly, Pagan traditions, unlike other faiths and philosophies (such as Buddhism or Christianity) don't put much emphasis on the spiritual benefits of restraint, asceticism or denial (as a choice, I should perhaps point out, not the grind of day-to-day poverty). Generally quite the opposite - writers such as Laurie Cabot encourage a mindset of abundance, though generally it is acknowledged that 'the primary goal of life is spiritual and not material' (Laurie Cabot, The Power of the Witch); spells to create wealth abound, and in our modern consumer culture many 'spiritual' books essentially encourage one to present the universe with a shopping list. And as I've previously mentioned, you only have to step into your nearest esoteric store to note the myriad fripperies and trappings with which you could ornament your person, house, altar and so forth should you choose. (There are, however, many modern writers who are deeply aware of the climate crisis and the ways in which our consumption is contributing to this destruction, such as Dana O'Driscoll, Glennie Kindred and others, which is a really positive direction and much more in keeping with 'nature based' paths IMO. I could also point you towards Graeme Talboys's The Druid Way Made Easy, which has a really interesting discussion of simplicity and living more in harmony with the natural world.)

Another, very different experience tweaked my thoughts on spending around this time. Now, I know it's daft and first-world-y to say that I had a life-changing experience at a spa! Besides, that's not quite how it went. What happened was that I was FINALLY able to use the Lush Spa voucher I had bought myself about a year and a half previous, and I had such a wonderful time that it really clarified for me what it is and isn't worth spending money on. More new clothes and jewellery? No, ta. A completely immersive, sensory hour of pampering and relaxation with fresh, eco friendly and ethical products? Oh my Goddess yes, bring it on.

I had a treatment called the Sound Bath, which involves facial massage with hot and cold stones, tuning forks applied to pressure points, scalp massage, sound therapy, ear candling, and a bunch of other stuff that was very lovely but which I can't explain or describe because my eyes were closed and I was, frankly, on another plane at this point. A fresh breeze, incense and possibly a rain stick were involved. And at the end the therapist made me a fresh lemonade - as in, she squeezed the lemon and added mint and chamomile right there in front of me, and I have no idea what was in the teapot but mist came rolling out over the tabletop as if by magic. (And it was served in a singing bowl. So much thought went into every area of this, my mind was totally blown.) So, yeah, I'm going to start setting some money aside to go back, even though it's clearly frivolous as heck. I don't get manicures, I make it to the hairdresser maybe once every couple of years, my self-care is poor to say the least, I'm gonna have this indulgence every now and again. I have never felt so blissfully pampered!

It also didn't escape my notice that a lot of the worries and anxieties I needed to escape from with this treatment were - still - insecurities around clothing and appearance, as well as what to buy and what not to buy. I had another - very different - holistic treatment arranged for my 30th birthday, which was last month, and it occurred to me that perhaps between those two points I could continue this sense of relaxation and rejuvenation - boost my wellbeing - by continuing to eliminate this category of worries and stresses. A 30-day shopping ban would allow me to gather myself, have a break from those persistent insecurities and obsessive thoughts, and let me go forward with peace and clarity. After the first week or so, which I suspected from my previous shopping bans would be a bit of a nightmare.

After two or three false starts, my shopping ban began on the 25th of July.

Week One

This wasn't how I wanted my story to go! I wanted to be able to wrap it up neatly and say, "Once I discovered Druidry, my overshopping and consumerism faded away and never troubled me again." Alas, not so.

However, this first week was not the gritted-teeth, white-knuckled battle I had been expecting. Quite the opposite - it felt like a relief. I knew there was nothing I really needed or wanted. Even when a rainstorm caused the Spud and me to take shelter in a large department store, there was not even a flicker of temptation. I must admit I was astonished. If it had become so easy to not shop, then what on earth had I been shopping for? Out of habit? Boredom? That old chestnut, the Diderot effect?

Weirdly, at around day five I found my old comparison tendencies flaring back up. It felt yucky, and was a useful reminder that life's too short for this bullshit.

Week Two

This week I realised I'm kind of an information addict, a knowledge junkie if you will. I've got so many online courses bookmarked, and one of my biggest timewasting activities is browsing books on Amazon and reading Kindle samples to find more and more sources of new information. This isn't necessarily good or bad in itself, I don't think, but it's definitely a time eater, can be a money eater, and also means that, particularly with spirituality, I can be prone to reading instead of doing. In his book Unsubscribe, Josh Korda says, "Filling the mind with information is really a variation of seeking security by lining our pockets or filling up our living rooms with gadgets and flat screens, for whether we are accumulating information or consumer goods, the underlying premise is that the answer is somewhere out there, not available to me already - this is the belief that fuels craving."

I decided to stop adding new books to my wishlist and try to cut down on my Googling and online information mining. Instead of seeking more and more knowledge, for the moment I wanted to start using and working with the wealth of information already available in my home library, as well as developing my personal gnosis.

I had two purchases this week which could be considered 'non-essential', one of which was a haircut, but I decided to let it stand, as the last professional haircut I had was a trim in August 2020, and the last before that was having a bob cut in 2018, before the Spud was born! My hair is now quite long, and I wanted some choppy layers put in to add shape and interest whilst keeping the length. I've been trimming my own hair for a while, or asking friends to have a go, but I decided that attempting my own layers was probably a bad idea, having spent so much time growing my hair for the wedding! So I hope you'll agree with my decision to give myself a pass on this one.

The other purchase was a book, but I'm not counting that as a ban break either, because it was the debut novel of a dear friend! It's wonderful when supporting artists and supporting friends falls under the same spending category.

Week Three

At the end of week two I'd had a revelation regarding my personal style, which I'll discuss in an upcoming post, so I went into week three feeling slightly startled and not entirely trusting my self-control. 

The biggest challenge this week was that it coincided with our annual trip to Pembrokeshire. I've referred to this trip as a pilgrimage before, and this year that was a quite literal descriptor. We had decided to visit some sites related to Saint Bride, as I'd been experiencing a strong connection to her ancient goddess counterpart, Brighid (this has been literally life-changing, but I'm not speaking too much about it here on the blog as it's covered in detail in my upcoming book). I was hoping that this spiritual focus for our trip would help me NOT focus on shopping, but I also knew there are some great shops in St David's, and the temptation would be strong.

There were, unsurprisingly, a couple of items I lusted after - briefly, but intensely - namely a jumpsuit by sustainable brand Tentree, and a deliciously sea-blue T-shirt with a 'wonder-filled coast' slogan that I found in a St David's gift shop. However, I was pleased with my progress on this new ban and so I chose not to break it or devise loopholes for myself. I also found that spending so much time in such a spectacularly beautiful place really revitalised my commitment to environmentalism - Dai became used to me staring out at each glorious sunset vista, watching the crescent moon rising over the liquid-gold, sparkling ocean, whilst wailing "Whyyyyyy do people pollute THIS?!"

Week Four

This week, back in the normal world, I found myself thinking more about the divide between where I am in life and where I want to be. I preach freedom and anarchism, but have a mortgage (we intend to renovate our house, sell up and get ourselves a smallholding in Wales where hopefully we can better live our values. In the meantime my job is to provide safety and stability for my little one, even if that means being a hypocrite and a sell-out). I aim for simple living, but I feel like I'm wading through stuff, my to-do list is endless, and I spend a lot of time fiddling about on my tablet or watching the clock. I never get enough sleep. Yoga, meditation, writing, making offerings, and other aspects of my spiritual life were becoming things I would perpetually do 'later' - once I'd cleared some more of my TBR pile, or finished the laundry, or made a centimetre of space in the back bedroom. Everything felt like a fight against the clock, even what I thought of as my more holistic pursuits, like planting veg and harvesting herbs. To borrow an expression of Dai's, all the jobs I hadn't done yet were hanging over my head like some sort of smelly bat.

I realised that I was doing everything in a rush. Our daily walks had been shunted aside in favour of frantic gardening, and I hurt my back while doing some DIY jobs I was too impatient to wait for Dai to help with. I'd almost stopped scratch cooking, too. It was definitely time to slow down and get mindful. 

I definitely benefited from taking this break and doubling down on controlling my spending. I'm going to take a bit of time now to decide what my next move will be - whether or not I'll try again for a full year without shopping.

The Life You Want Is Not For Sale

August last year was a breath of fresh air after lockdown as we were able to go on our annual trip to our favourite little cottage in Pembrokeshire. I drifted onto Pinterest and Instagram once each, and wasn't able to tear myself away from my emails as much as I would have liked, but the holiday was an interesting benchmark to see how I was changing. 

Our first visit, I was heavily pregnant, had no real sense of identity and so was shopping constantly as if I could build a self that way, and found it a relief to give up wearing make-up (strange now that that once seemed so radical!) and immerse myself in sightseeing and novels.

Our second, I was not far into my first attempted no-shop year. The Wi-Fi had arrived, and I was anxious and plagued by comparison, desperate to improve myself in various ways as I didn't feel up to the standard of other women I saw. This was the year of frantic Pinterest- and ASOS-scrolling in bathrooms.

This year, I felt much more relaxed and comfortable in my own skin. I kept up with messages, surveys and emails, more because I felt I should than because I wanted to, so I didn't get that complete sense of escape, retreat and renewal, but it didn't get out of hand either. I enjoyed trying local foods, and I did make some purchases, including a second-hand knitting book from a junk shop, a hat from a woollen mill we visited, and a skorts situation (one of the most useful items of clothing I own! Dries really quickly and has three pockets!) from an ethical clothing store we visited so that I could go swimming comfortably whilst on my period. I felt much more engaged with and aware of nature - we spent a lot of time on the beach, swimming, clambering over rocks and finding incredible things in rock pools. And the comparison was gone - hooray!

In September, our trip to Glastonbury rolled around, shortly before my birthday. Again, I made some purchases - the first of which was a book on nålbinding and a bone needle from the Viking shop Wyrd Raven (love me some heritage crafts!). 

As usually happens when I find myself in places where everyone is a bit alternative in manner of dress, I felt a bit boring and basic. I can't win with this. If I bust out the velvet dresses and shitkicking boots I feel self-conscious and like The Weird Friend(TM) (I have friends who do introduce me as "the weird one" - they don't realise I'm actually really super-sensitive and cry a little inside). If I wear jeans and t-shirt I feel plain and unimaginative. But the comparison is a far cry from what it used to be, and I don't need dreadlocks and a cupboard full of dubiously sourced crystals to be interested in the environment or to enjoy Glastonbury. 

We had a busy weekend of sightseeing, drinking blackberry mead in our hotel room and (in my case) looking hopefully for faeries, and I had no difficulty with refraining from shopping until the very last day, when I broke on all counts. I couldn't resist an Instagram post, and I bought three items of clothing. I was disappointed with the first point, but not the second in the end. Although I was time-pressured (Dai and the Spud were waiting in the car) and budget-constrained, the three pieces I bought - essentially on impulse, wanting to capture the sense of excitement, unconventionality and free-spiritedness I was feeling - have turned out to be three of the most-worn, most-loved and useful things I own! A chunky multicoloured knitted jacket with a fleece lining, which has served me well over the winter, a pair of purple tie-dye dungarees, and a pair of harem pants with a muted rainbow stripe. 

Before I decided I was going to make some purchases, shopping ban be damned, the Spud and Dai and I sat eating our breakfast and drinking our much-needed coffee at a spindly table in the village square, basking in the sunshine. I was hunched over my phone, researching the ethical credentials of the shops I planned to visit, until I was satisfied I could give myself the green light to go ahead without guilt on that front. 

I was also pleased with myself because I have a clear memory from my first Pembrokeshire trip, when I chose not to buy a pair of bright tie-dye leggings, because I was worried they might "draw too much attention to me". I was happy that I was beginning to choose for myself, not make myself small or try to fit a label (I used to buy pretty much anything vaguely goth that came across my path).

Coming home from Glastonbury I felt quite rejuvenated. I expect that, living in a place that is largely pretty provincial, it's healthy to be reminded that it's okay to be a bit more 'out there'. I started to make more effort with decor around our home, and I considered planning an annual or biannual trip to Glastonbury to stock up on mead, Goddess statues, Viking jewellery and unconventional ethical clothing. 

I had a twinge or two in case this was all a bit consumerist, but at the same time I wondered (as I have many times before) whether the human soul simply needs colour, beauty and art every now and again.

A lot of my wardrobe felt a little lacklustre in comparison to my new things. I had been playing it safe for a long time - worried about attention, or vanity, or consumerism. I'd almost forgotten the joy of impulse-buying something that is exactly right, or choosing a book in a real, physical bookshop. Non-chain-store shopping that is ethical and vibrant and brings a little excitement. Surely this is not the same animal as the blind, semi-desperate basket-filling I used to do in Primark, IKEA, Zara, it's-cheap-so-I'll-have-it? Is it selling out to consumer culture to take joy in well-chosen material objects, to appreciate the things we use and cherish them, not buy them to be used once and discarded?

Browsing online started to frustrate and irritate me. I couldn't find items that produced the same spark, especially since I wasn't sure what keywords to use or where to look. Standard labels we use like 'hippie' or 'alternative clothing' mainly turned up stuff that was mass-produced, sweatshop-made and unoriginal, which wasn't at all what I was looking for (is it 'alternative' if you bought it from the same website or brand that all the other 'alternative' kids are shopping from this week? What's unique about a goth-in-a-box kit from Attitude Clothing? Tell me how that's less basic than buying all your clothes from New Look). 

Then it was my birthday. It was fantastic and felt really special - books, flowers, sunshine and a most excellent Indian takeaway. 

On my birthday, I decided that the shopping ban was to be no more. I wrote in my journal, "I want to be able to treat myself without guilt - enjoy books, films, music and art as and when I want to without feeling bad about it. And I want to learn to find a balance between spending and being frugal without going to one extreme or the other." 

Can you guess what happened next? That's right! I went to the other extreme. It started so promisingly - we went to an artisan's market, and I bought nothing. Hooray! I had discovered that I could make good decisions and apply what I'd learned without clinging to the framework of trying never to buy anything. 

Except... not so much. Online browsing, annoying and unsatisfying though it was, quickly filled up my spare moments. Within three days I'd bought six clothing items, an art piece, and some more books. Whilst the items were great, I knew I couldn't afford for this to continue, and I also felt lacking in purpose without the ban to direct me (here's a thing I should probably do something about, as I don't intend to be on a shopping ban forever). So I reinstated my limits.

I want to enjoy my clothes, but I don't want to go back to having to prove how ~alternative~ I am by buying into a 'look'. And I don't want to spend hours online, fruitlessly searching for - what, exactly? I feel like an exciting, enchanted, magical life is out there, but I just don't know how to find it or create it. I have deduced, however, that it's not for sale on Etsy.

Relapse or Realism?

At the beginning of March, I had a mini freak-out and totally muffed up my low-buy. I've been letting this news percolate for a while, so that I could try to work out how I feel about it. The initial spend, which started with lingerie and fancy chocs, could have been for hormonal reasons, I'm not one hundred per cent sure. I just felt a little glum, and frustrated that my self-imposed limits prohibited me from buying things like magazines and face masks without guilt. I'm twenty-nine, I found myself thinking, shouldn't I be able to buy a damn Fortean Times and a chocolate bar if I want to? (Not that chocolate was counted out under ban rules, but my new Sense of Frugal Duty made me feel bad for considering an UNNECESSARY purchase. It's entirely possible that I have some issues. Thanks for noticing.)

In case you're wondering, I'm super happy with all the items I bought, which had all been on my list of upcoming monthly purchases. I'm waiting for one more item to restock in my size, and then I intend buying that too, as I don't have a lot of summer-appropriate clothing. I didn't spend more than I could afford, either - hooray! (And after I bought the lingerie set, a wire came wriggling out of one of my last semi-decent-if-too-small bras, so I'm gonna go ahead and call that one a good buy.)

As much as I (mostly) enjoy having the structure of a low-buy challenge or shopping ban, and at first it seemed to be going really well, I'm starting to struggle now after nearly two years of self-imposed rules. The problems are firstly that it focuses the mind on all the things I'm NOT buying, and secondly this guilt developing around things that would be quite reasonable to purchase (like chocolate). I also have found myself thinking that more flexibility might be in order - I love the items I bought in Glastonbury in September - a patchwork jacket, tie dye dungarees and rainbow striped harem pants - and if I were to make a similar trip in future I would probably want to make purchases again, if something special caught my eye.

This last couple of years I've tried really hard to embrace anti-consumerism and simple living, but I keep tripping over my love of clothes, adornments and other little luxuries. This makes me feel quite disappointed, but it does seem to be in my nature. I can moderate it and choose not to make a purchase, but I can't seem to just stop being interested in my style, even when I feel convinced that it makes me shallow or silly.

I hope that now I've bought those things on my list I can make a clean break from browsing shopping sites, which is probably my most irritating and self-defeating habit. Going forward, I'm going to try to only buy things when necessary, because I'm happy with the amount of clothes that I have and don't want to keep piling on, and I'm going to prioritise physical shops (not chain stores or fast fashion! I mean small businesses, boutiques and charity shops) whenever possible. 

I know that I can indulge my enjoyment of dressing up without shopping for new things all the time, but persistently telling myself that I MUST NOT SHOP seems to be shooting myself in the foot a little. I'm tired of guilt and self-analysis and for feeling like a terrible person because I like sparkly nails and quirky jewellery and am not a combination of Swampy and a Buddhist monk. I had this kind of ideal eco version of me in my head for a while last year; I imagined myself barefoot and tan in worn jeans and a visibly mended T-shirt, no make-up, growing my own herbs and veg and keeping chickens. Not gonna lie, I still love that image - but that's all it is, an image. Real me would not like to part company with my blue hair extensions (they're clip-ins from Etsy), New Rock boots, and iridescent UFO earrings. Ideal eco me is great for sunny weekends in the garden, but it's the whole me, not just an idealised image, who has to go about in the world feeling good. Which is much easier when I'm embracing who I really am and what I really like. 

So my plan is, at least for a little while, to have no plan. I'm going to take a little bit of time to re-set. During that time I'm going to really embrace the things I have - read those books, play those CDs, wear those earrings, use those hair products! I try to do this anyway, but I'm going to try extra hard. I'm also going to refocus on the goals that I felt were most important when I first set out on the shopping ban - to be more present, especially with my son; to continue reducing my time online; and to take more time to be creative (other than writing blog posts, which has become my fallback spare time activity). I may also choose to read some books I've been eyeing up for a while that might remind me why it's important to reduce our consumption - books like Affluenza, Loved Clothes Last, Mend! and The Story of Stuff. 

Another train of thought I found myself boarding this month came about as I was reading a novel, The Dressmaker's Gift by Fiona Valpy. It's about three seamstresses working in a couture house during WWII, and it isn't at all the sort of thing I'd usually pick up (no ghosts, robots, or wizards), but it was lent to me and I found it fascinating. And it really reminded me that we have as a society completely changed how we treat our wardrobes - characters in the book used fabric scraps to create new gowns, treated everything with great care, even made wedding dresses out of parachute silk. Nowadays we buy a dress from Tesco, wear it twice and think nothing of discarding it!

I can't suddenly afford couture, but the book did remind me that caring about the way we present ourselves isn't just frivolous and doesn't just relate to 'fashion' as it's presented to us nowadays, a dizzying carousel of trends the advertisers want you to wear out your wallet keeping up with. But people used to spend a much higher proportion of their income on clothes, and treat them with great importance. (In Middle Egypt, fabric was literally currency.) Knowing how to mend, care for, even update your clothes would bestow pride, dignity, self-respect. We would have eked out their lives as long as possible. A new dress would have been exciting, important, savoured. 

Vintage clothing tells a story, whether it be a hand-stitched seam, a small repair, a scattering of beads added for a special occasion. The fact that clothing from one hundred years ago survives today in wearable condition tells us its quality, when I've had things from Topshop fall apart in my hands after barely a month. I now feel that I would like to focus more, when I do shop, on acquiring items that can tell stories. Either secondhand, vintage or made by individuals (this is why I like Etsy).  

Since I managed to purchase a few items without tipping back into overshopping and disaster, I'm hoping that I might now be able to go forward without specific rules, able to make an occasional thoughtful purchase without feeling like I'm letting the side down by failing to be the Queen of Frugality. I must admit, though, there's a part of me that feels like this is giving up, as though I'm giving myself carte blanche to go back to being a spendthrift. That's not my intention. I've just had enough of the feeling that I'm somehow cut off from the flow of normal life because I have to second-guess every purchase I think of making. Maybe I can get close to the present, focused, conscious, creative life that I want without imposing a total moratorium on new items?

I Broke My Low-Buy To Buy Lingerie and I Refuse To Feel Guilty

One thing you may not know about me - and why would you? - is that I love lingerie. I reluctantly bought one supermarket multipack of knickers to contain my last-month-of-pregnancy bottom and I hated doing it. I designed my own bridal lingerie, and Buttress & Snatch, who made it, liked my design so much they now sell it as part of their special range.

Maternity bras are not a joy. I've been wearing some of mine since pregnancy, and they are discoloured and saggy with little bits of elastic poking out all over. They're not exactly a beautiful garment to begin with, and certainly don't provide the scaffolding I need after two and a bit years of breastfeeding.

Breastfeeding. That's another thing. I totally believe in natural term breastfeeding, but it is bloody arduous at times. The Spud still feeds multiple times per night, and there are moments when my body hardly even feels like it's mine.

I realised late one night that I don't feel beautiful. Or attractive. I did used to rate myself a lot more highly in that department. I'd assumed that the changes in my body wrought by pregnancy and birth wouldn't be a big deal to me, and by and large they're not, but none of my former lingerie collection fits any more, I'm living in grotty breastfeeding bras, and I don't necessarily know how to dress this new body to help it look its best.

Also, to be brutally honest, in a relatively short space of time, I exited a very long-term relationship (thirteen years), moved house three times, experienced a disastrous fling or two, had a short but intense situation that nearly resulted in a move to Australia, met Dai and spent ages not realising this was A Serious Thing, got pregnant, had a miscarriage, got pregnant, birthed the Spud with some difficulty, gave up my own income, breastfed for two years, and here I am three dress sizes bigger, exhausted and a little dazed, wondering why I don't feel as sexy as I did at twenty-one.

This is the first time I've looked this feeling in the face instead of hiding it with baggy clothes and a metaphorical sign that says "I can't look nice now because I'm too worried about the environment and stuff. And I'm a parent now, which is hard. In fact I think I am actually more tired from parenting than that time with insomnia when I hallucinated a person hiding under my desk." 

When I realised what was going on, I felt kinda heartbroken and outraged on my own behalf. I mean, if I'd known before that my self-esteem was this low, I'd have helped me. It was never my intention to drag myself through life feeling unattractive and lacklustre. I knew I felt a bit frumpy at times, but I hadn't really acknowledged just how much I'd written myself off as undesirable.

So I bought myself the first lingerie set I have owned in three years. It does not have little hooks for baby access. I did not choose it according to anyone else's preferences. It is luxurious. It is decadent. It is chartreuse satin trimmed in cream French lace. And I'm not going to apologise for it. Or feel guilty about it. We can call it a replacement for those manky maternity bras, if an excuse must be provided.

This is a symbolic first step on the road to taking better care of myself. I deserve to feel confident and desirable. 

Life is sometimes a dark and dreary place. But that doesn't mean my underwear drawer has to be. 

So yes, I broke my low-buy. But I don't think I actually regret it. I'm currently re-thinking whether I'm going to continue trying with the challenge. If I make it to the end of the year with only this single slip-up, I won't have done badly. This is just another thing I've learned about myself on the journey - I don't need as much to be happy as I once thought I did, but just as I do need books, music, art, nature, good food and good company, I need to feel good in my own skin too. However, I've been learning to control my spending for almost two years now, and I am kind of getting sick of thinking about it. I would like to be able to pick up a magazine or a bath oil every now and again without it being a huge deal, a failure, something to feel guilty about.

I don't ever want to go back to being a huge spendthrift. But I kind of do want to be able to buy that interesting book or pretty eyeshadow without feeling like I'm letting myself - or you - down. I just, maybe, want to learn how to be a NORMAL shopper, not excessive and not austere.

Budgeting and Birthday Treats

In September 2019, with a full, if slightly bizarre wardrobe and a tired heart I turned my mind to the next quandary - how was I going to keep my financial ship afloat? The state of my bank account was horrific - I was now worse off than before I started the challenge. It was time to dedicate myself to the pursuit of frugality.

Tightening the Belt

Firstly and obviously, I made sure to return as many of my recent purchases as I could. I kept two pairs of jeans from Topshop, a dress and top from Zara, and the lipstick. The rest went back.

I put a date in the diary for a clothing swap party with my friends. I didn't expect to have much to contribute, but it seemed like a nice non-spendy way to get together. 

Dai and I looked at ways we could tighten up the family food budget. Instead of buying baby meals and 'ping meals', my former staples (I could barely boil an egg), I got a Jack Monroe budget cookbook from the library and started learning to make simple, healthy food that we could all eat together. Cooking was more pleasurable than I had anticipated, and soon became a new creative outlet, and I took up baking bread as well. Simple swaps that may seem obvious to you were to me a revelation - my £2.49-a-week cereal exchanged for a hefty 75p bag of porridge oats - porridge was twice as filling and lasted me three times as long.

Once I'd started to see a difference, saving money became addictive. I breathed down Dai's neck as we trailed the aisles in Aldi, making sure we got the cheapest products per kilo. I switched our energy and internet providers for better deals and moved my savings to higher interest accounts. I even cancelled Netflix (on the understanding that we would reinstate it if there were to be a new season of Happy). Without a regular income I didn't want to invest in stocks and shares, so instead I started buying premium bonds. I started doing product testing and online surveys for a bit of extra money - it wasn't a fortune, but it was something I could provide for the family coffers whilst still being at home with the little one.

And it worked! The holiday pay came in, making my bank account healthy again - and it stayed. At last, I had turned myself into a responsible adult, able to live within my means. 

Over the next few months, I used the money we saved to save more money - buying reusable cotton cloths for the kitchen and the baby's bum (no more kitchen towels or baby wipes), a safety razor and shaving brush (bye, Gilette), and WUKA period pants (don't even get me started on the price of tampons). Happily, these changes were also better for the environment, and I was pleased with my new, greener way of living.

In the cupboard under the stairs I found a bag - a small bag - of clothes that somehow never made it to the clothing bank, and I was so pleased I almost wept. 

Age

That September I turned twenty-eight. I was finding my late twenties a very different animal than the carefree early twenties, before stretch marks, shortsightedness, the indignity of maternity bras and an onslaught of household bills. Not to mention the unwanted guest at every occasion, the furrow developing between my eyebrows. 

I no longer wanted to wiggle round town in a slip of spandex from Boohoo - or at least when the thought did occur, it was tinged with nostalgia for that apparently-fleeting time when shiny fabric with rather daring cut-outs had actually looked quite good. Last time I'd put false eyelashes on, instead of alluring, I was forced to admit that I looked deranged.

Apart from a growing suspicion that motherhood combined with my natural tendency towards introversion was making me old before my time, I found I was enjoying different freedoms. No, I couldn't now drop everything for a weekend in London on a whim, but I also no longer wanted or needed to present myself as universally desirable, which freed up a lot of time and headspace. Other women were my allies, not my competition. Daily leg shaving and uncomfortable underwear made out of bits of string fell by the wayside, and I really didn't miss them. 

So this birthday, I thought long and hard about what I wanted to do. This new all-natural version of me, unseduced by the glitz of the department store and the breathless excitement of the mall, who hearkened back to the easy joys of childhood. What kind of things did I REALLY enjoy? In this new shopping-free existence, my pleasures were simple - eating, reading, fresh air, looking at interesting stuff. So Dai and I elected to travel to a nearby town which was holding a flea market.

Somehow, at the time, it genuinely did not occur to me that shopping at a flea market was still shopping. 

An Accidental Ban Break

It was a beautiful day, the sky a cheerful blue over the higgledy-piggledy red roofs, the steam trains puffing industriously into the station of this historic market town. It was pretty and quaint, and we bought coffee and pastries as we wandered the stalls, captivated by doll parts on royal blue velvet and a cross-eyed taxidermy stoat. I bought three ribbons made from recycled silk and reclaimed sari fabric, thinking I could use them to customise, well, something. At some point. Definitely useful, anyway. And ethical! Supporting local businesses, too, I practically deserved a medal.

Please insert your own facepalm emoji here.

In other ways, though, my birthday was a triumph. In the run-up, I hadn't been able to escape thinking about buying this or that for myself as a "birthday treat", a habit I'd started many years ago, and, as with the holiday souvenirs, never since questioned. Dai thought that I should get myself a small treat, ban or no ban, but I had just about made up my mind not to, to confirm to myself that henceforth, I was doing things differently. 

It was also handy to have one or two specific items that I could think of when I was asked what gifts I would like. Because I hadn't been able to buy every item that crossed my path, I had a couple of books and useful items that I specifically wanted.

I also did something else I'd never done before. Usually, I spent all my birthday money on this or that, generally a large luxury purchase I'd been hankering after for ages. Not this time. This time, other than one little blip, I saved it all.

Been There, Done That, Became Weirdly Obsessed With A T-Shirt

I found September challenging in one notable way. Having broken the ban so very spectacularly in August, I was now having immense difficulty in reining in my shopping behaviours. Despite how much I wasn't enjoying it, every day I was back online, checking the new arrivals pages of my favourite stores, or - in a new twist - "researching" ethical brands, to, um, "make sure that I could buy what I wanted in the future, but, you know, from better companies". I was trying to put myself in the path of temptation. Even though I couldn't really afford it, let alone justify it, I was searching for something so beautiful, so right, that surely no one would say I shouldn't buy it.

This was how I discovered The T-Shirt. 

The T-Shirt was made by a small business in an English seaside town I had visited and loved many years ago. It was dyed with environmentally friendly dye and silk-screened by hand with the name of the town, and a quirky print of a trawlerman mending his nets with his trusty dog by his side. In classic British navy blue - flattering on me - and white.

Wow, I thought, that's so me.

But no. I was on a shopping ban. It was not to be. And yet...

It's barely an exaggeration to say that for most of the month my every waking thought was about The T-Shirt. I discussed it, I journalled about it, frankly I obsessed about it. I knew that sticking to the ban would give me more long-term benefits than any t-shirt - I wouldn't be learning anything if I didn't try to stick it out - but every occasion gave me new opportunities to try to get around my own rules. I should never have been browsing t-shirts in the first place. I was setting myself up to fail. 

Between that and the ribbons I felt like I was back at the beginning. One more thing, and then I'll stop. One more thing... And just one more. 

So I started planning a holiday for Dai, the Spud and me for my 30th birthday. I picked a place I had always wanted to visit, but had written off as too difficult, too logistically complicated. I chose Shetland. It gave me something to aim for with my newfound frugality, and also something to focus on other than acquisition. I felt that it was time to have a good hard think about the kind of life I really wanted, because salivating over a t-shirt wasn't it. 

I'd been shying away from doing that because it scared me. Change scared me. Goals scared me. But if I kept putting it off, my life would fly by in a whirlwind of shopping lists, everything worthwhile sidelined in case it was too difficult.

Oh, but that 'little blip' in my saving that I mentioned? 

I bought The T-Shirt.

Off the Wagon

Reviewing my holiday photos from the Isle of Wight, I noticed that my bikini was not providing me quite as much coverage up top as I needed - one thing on the beach, another thing entirely in the family pool at the leisure centre. So I allowed myself a ban waiver to purchase a swimsuit, with the proviso that it be ethically sourced (The True Cost still vivid in my mind's eye). 

I ordered a lovely pink and purple paisley swimsuit from vintage store Beyond Retro, and when it arrived I could not have been more happy with it. I think I appreciated it more because I bought it to fulfil a legitimate need, and because it was second-hand I didn't need to go through the exhausting, irritating faff of browsing and comparing 9,000 options. And although it was second-hand, I somehow felt it was more "me" than a generic piece from Primark or H&M. 

If only that had been my only ban break for August '19. 

Splurging

In hindsight, it's hard to pinpoint a single trigger. I remember that we went on our annual pilgrimage to beautiful Pembrokeshire, and the deep dismay I felt discovering that our cottage, once a place of retreat and renewal, now boasted Wi-Fi. I felt unable to ignore it, despite encouragement to do so from Dai and his dad, and found myself furtively checking emails before bed and scrolling through Pinterest in the bathroom. I was no longer present. I was checking out.

On our day trips to local beauty spots and seaside villages, my tendency towards comparison went into overdrive. I watched other women constantly, my chest aching with jealousy. I hated my clothes again. I felt old, frumpy, fat. I started sneaking off to the loo and browsing ASOS, Office, H&M, looking for the next fix, the "perfect" item that would pull together my magpie wardrobe. Deep down I knew that the only thing that needed pulling together was me. My compulsion to shop, my fixation on my appearance as all-important, soured my mood and cast a pall over time in an idyllic place with my son and fiance.

Returning home, I couldn't shake off those feelings. One afternoon, watching a makeover show on Netflix, I found myself almost in tears as the stylist encouraged her victims to express themselves creatively with their clothing, an outlet that no longer seemed to serve me.

One o'clock the following morning I started shopping. It began with an £8 dress in the Beyond Retro sale. 

Then an £18 Glossier lipstick. 

Then four pairs of jeans from Topshop.

And just like that, I was off the wagon. 

The next two weeks passed in a sickly blur. 

A package from Zara. A package from H&M.

Guilt, frustration, confusion, anger, disappointment. More guilt.

A package from Pull & Bear. A package from ASOS.

Pinterest, fashion blogs, perfect women, perfect lives.

Nights spent scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, scrolling. Trying to picture that item, this item, on me, in my life. Squelching concerns about waste, about ethics - I can't explain why it felt so urgent, so desperate, why I felt clothes had the power to fix whatever it was I felt I was sorely lacking. Trying to decode the bizarre photography on the Zara website (SERIOUSLY! I hate to ruin my own pathos here, but look at the bollocks they are trying to sell clothes with! You will die laughing). Days spent taking too-small jeans and too-bright dresses and camel toe jumpsuits back to the post office. I could feel myself becoming more irritable by the day, distracted, distressed by this apparent inability to dress myself.

Worse, I decided I needed to jettison some of these clothes I supposedly hated so much, and perhaps - hopefully - some of these stifling emotions along with them. Before I knew it my wardrobe was rattling with empty hangers. I had achieved the minimalist dream, the capsule wardrobe.

Sparking Joy

Despite three house moves over the course of the previous year, and what I thought was a fairly comprehensive clearout each time, I still had a pretty enormous wardrobe. I'd even applied the full Marie Kondo treatment, piling up all the items from each category and sorting through them all (it took me over a fortnight to clear the book pile). But because I had still been continually, mindlessly shopping, I could still barely move for clothes. 

After reading Cait Flanders's blog (many previous posts now deleted) and learning about her super-minimalist 28-item wardrobe, a desire for a Pinterest-friendly, effortlessly curated closet kicked into high gear, and I resolved to clear everything out of my wardrobe that was only so-so, and keep only the things I really loved. I read Anuschka Rees's blog top to bottom, put things into bags and towed them straight down to the Salvation Army clothing bank. Its metal jaws closed with a creak and a bang on a bizarre variety of things: an alarming amount of expensive shoes that hurt my feet, a T-shirt from a metal gig in Birmingham I spent the next eighteen months wishing I had back, miniskirts from Topshop that looked fine at 25 but suddenly mildly embarrassing at 27, bras that stood no chance of ever fitting again post-baby, approximately a thousand geeky slogan t-shirts that I abruptly deemed unflattering.

I expected the result to be an airy sense of weightlessness, an ease of getting dressed, a feeling of smug satisfaction. Instead I felt bored. My wardrobe may have been streamlined, all my choices now flattering, but I missed the sense of possibility. This probably sounds a bit nuts, but I missed the opportunity to be less-than-tasteful. For me, I discovered, getting dressed was about more than looking pretty. Some days, I loved a worn, oversized t-shirt and old jeans. I didn't always WANT to be stylish - or flattering. I missed a little chaos. My closet felt tired and colourless, and with a sinking heart, I realised that - once again - I had simply been wasteful. I wasn't Cait Flanders - when would I learn that I couldn't become myself by emulating other people?

My clearout did at least prove to me that, in shopping my way to a new persona via Pinterest, I had been buying the wrong things. Most of what I donated was two-a-penny; meaningless; pieces bought to fill a generic "this is what your wardrobe is missing" list - tailored black trousers, a classic beige trench coat in garbadine (never polyester; heaven forbid). But those things weren't me at all. 

One thing I was learning during the ban was how to tell what I actually liked - not what I thought I should wear, or what would improve me, or what I'd wear if I was a slightly different version of myself, or would have really loved five years ago. I must have read the advice to not buy anything you don't really love dozens and dozens of times, but it had never really sunk in - or else I was so overcome by the buying urge that "really love" was no longer objective. I could convince myself that I "really loved" pretty much anything, and come up with umpteen apparently sensible justifications for owning it, only to realise the truth of the matter once said item was hanging in the wardrobe emanating guilt and vague discomfort.

But now I really, genuinely had nothing to wear - and I couldn't shop. A dilemma, if ever there was one.

I was back where I had started. Stressed, anxious, and broke. I felt like I was treading water, gasping for breath. I was crippled with tension headaches and short-tempered with my son. I felt paralysed, unable to find and purchase the secret keys to my true self, the answer to the question that rattled around my head day and night: what kind of woman am I?

I had to take a breath. I had to find some air. I turned back to my journal, flipped through the pages, and remembered the sense of possibility and hope I had felt when I started to look at things through the lens of frugality and learn about sustainability. I had touched the edge of a new way of living, where how I might present myself was the least important thing about me. Where creativity and self-expression did not rely on what I chose to buy but who I chose to be. 

Slowly, I felt calmness returning. I pushed aside the endless questions and doubts about my appearance, the stream of comparisons and envy, and did my damnedest to focus on other things. 

 "When a woman says, 'I have nothing to wear!', what she really means is, 'There's nothing here for who I'm supposed to be today." - Caitlin Moran

January Accountability

So how have I been doing with my low-buy year so far? I've actually been finding it much easier - one "allowed" purchase this month seemed to function as a release valve, so that need to buy didn't feel so urgent. It also served to make me think really hard about that one purchase - I wanted something that would bring value for the whole month or even longer, and I didn't want to experience anticlimax or buyer's remorse.

I finished sorting through my clothes, as per my year of being myself, and although I donated a bag full to Re-Fashion, and a couple of bags of damaged and worn items were taken to the textile recycle bank, I still had a LOT of clothes and couldn't see that adding to the pile would bring me any real pleasure. Likewise, after Christmas and my birthday I was all set for books, cosmetics, and all my other usual 'go-to' categories for frivolous purchasing.

But there was one thing that came immediately to mind that I'd been contemplating for a while, and although it wasn't a necessary purchase in any sense, I felt strongly that it would bring me great value - I bought a year's subscription to my favourite magazine, Enchanted Living. 

What amazed me was that I then didn't feel tempted by other items! I could think of my subscription, look forward to it arriving, and I knew that it would give me more joy and entertainment than anything else on offer.

This month also marked a year since I last used Facebook! Amazingly, considering I once treated it as an essential part of modern life, I haven't missed it. Nor do I feel I've missed out on anything because of it. If anything, I feel my friendships have benefitted as I've actually had to take the time to message people - or even phone them - to stay in touch (under normal circumstances I'd say 'meet up', but COVID and lockdowns have been against me there). It's been a relief not to have Facebook - it's such a time eater, and for the one time you find something worthwhile in your first ten minutes of scrolling, there are dozens of occasions when the content is boring, annoying, infuriating or depressing. So no, I won't be going back.

It's also over 100 days since I last logged in to Instagram, AND I'm a couple of weeks clear of Pinterest and GoodReads as well. It's not that I think these platforms are bad in themselves, but they certainly don't do me any favours, and I wanted to have the chance to experience life without them and see if I found myself more present, calmer or more balanced, and so far that's a big fat yes on all counts.

Merry Christmas! Some Ideas for the New Year

My dear readers - friends, family, and the one or two strangers who have found this little corner of the net - thank you for checking in on my weekly ramblings this last couple of months. I have enjoyed sharing with you some of my thoughts and lessons from my previous shopping ban attempt, as well as staying accountable in my current attempt. I'm intending to take a couple of weeks' break from blogging for the festive season, but before I go I want to give you a few tips that I have gleaned from this process.

Tried and Tested Tips

If you have read this far and relate to much of what I have said, I strongly feel you should consider doing a shopping ban of your own - it's a challenge everyone can learn something from. If, however, you really can't face that, another experiment you could try, perhaps in the New Year, is to pick a category of your belongings - books, clothing or make-up, for example - and try not to buy any more until something in that category actually needs replacing. You may be surprised by how much more you have than you actually need. For example, I was amazed to discover at the end of my first year that I had only worn out a single pair of socks, and still had more than ten remaining bottles of body lotion! (It's now a year and seven months since I last bought: socks (or any kind of hosiery), handbags, scarves,  knickers, perfume, eyeshadow, nail varnish, stationery, furniture, DVDs, CDs, collectable figurines of any kind, yarn, jewellery or tech. Have I run out of any of these things? Not even close.)

Here are a few of the most important things I have learned in the year-and-a-bit since I started trying to quit shopping:

1. Browsing leads to spending. 

Don't make it easy for them to keep you hooked. Put down your phone. My life became so much better when I stopped feeling obligated to compare EVERY dress on ASOS.

2. You don't lose anything by not buying something.

3. There isn't One True Garment that will reveal and encapsulate your identity.

4. You can't shop your way to a sense of self.

In fact, overshopping was part of what eroded my sense of self in the first place. 

5. Use and value what you already have.

6. At the end of your life, you won't wish you'd spent more time shopping.

7. Express yourself through your actions, not your purchases.

8. Take inventory.

Counting your stuff is not the most fun way to spend time, but it's harder to convince yourself you really need another t-shirt if you know you already have 63 t-shirts. (Yes, actual number. Have I not mentioned I have an overshopping problem?)

9. Consider your priorities.

What are you giving up if you keep spending your money on unnecessary trinkets? A house deposit? That trip you've always wanted to take? Your security or peace of mind? What if you saved that money instead?

10. Don't broadcast everything.

A private life is a happy life. I used to pour myself into social media in the name of authenticity and then always felt I had to live up to the image I was creating. Your choices become limited when you feel you should be promoting or explaining them to an audience. Deciding to be more mysterious was one of my best decisions to date.

11. Let go of perfect.

I learned during wedding planning that perfection is a tyrant. Embrace 'good enough' and be liberated. My hair, my skin, my smile, my wardrobe - not perfect, but good enough, and that makes me happy every day. If you let go of perfect, you only have to meet your own standards - not society's, not Instagram's. (If your own standards still feel too high, can you try to see yourself how your friends and loved ones see you? Beyond facial features and body shape, true beauty is in the way you light up, the way you talk, smile, laugh, move.)

And Lastly

This week's accountability - well, a mixed bag to report. I did have to shell out on a new pair of shoes - as I've mentioned before, I often suffer with plantar fasciitis, and this week it's flared up badly. After watching me hobble around in agony for a few days, Dai insisted it was time to replace the battered pink Reeboks I've been wearing for the last two and a half years. So I've ordered these amazing cork shoes with a "foot mattress" insole from sustainable, ethical company Po-Zu. I hadn't actually bought shoes in over two years (!) which I guess is pretty good going. I did resent replacing the Reeboks as they haven't actually disintegrated yet, but they have seen better days, and I can't keep up with my toddler when every step feels like walking on needles!

Unfortunately, I had a weird few days over the weekend when I didn't like what I saw in the mirror, and by Tuesday I was once again convinced I needed a total change of wardrobe. I felt sick of budgeting and thinking about money and 'stuff' all the time. I bought the Spud some lovely pyjamas, dressing gown, dinosaur t-shirt and a toy car (no regrets there, also not a ban break) and then I bought myself a cardigan from The Ragged Priest (in the sale) and a new book (Embrace Your Weird by my woman crush Felicia Day, can't imagine why that spoke to me at the time). So that's a third strike - time to start my day count from the beginning, I guess!

I should note that my little spree coincided with a) a heavy bout of Pinterest use - must quit, it clearly is the devil, and b) menstruation. I suspect a few of my shopping binges have coincided with that particular joyful time of the month - not sure yet how to guard against Shark Week Brain and its demand for extreme makeovers. Anyone have any suggestions? I must admit, I do sometimes let eco-guilt (or mum guilt) get in the way of actually taking the time to enjoy my clothes and appearance and then I end up feeling rough and frumpy... Perhaps this is something I can work on. I struggle to convince myself that it isn't selfish (or a sign of sinister corporate/patriarchal brainwashing) to want to feel good about the way I present myself. 

Have a wonderful, imperfect, being-"safe"-in-weird-pandemic-times Christmas, and I'll see you in the New Year.

Doing It For The 'Gram

"We're all self-expressing. It's the conformity of our time," - Adam Curtis 

A Holiday From Wi-Fi

When I was pregnant with my little boy, I went to Wales with my partner and his father - two large, affable, mischievous Welshmen. It was a real, proper holiday, the kind of holiday I hadn't known I needed until I found myself in the middle of it, breathing a sigh of relief.

You see, on this holiday, we had no Wi-Fi. No phone reception. I found myself, for the first time in eighteen years (give or take), cut adrift from the internet. 

And this turned out to be a bigger deal than I had expected. 

This holiday was to a location where my partner (let's call him Dai) and his dad regularly liked to go, plus or minus a motley assortment of brothers, sisters, nephews (my son is one of seven grandsons) and dogs. It was not, therefore, selected via Trip Advisor. I had not spent evenings browsing Canopy and Stars for a location with maximum Instagrammability. It was a place where I could feel things, do things, think things, but not share them. It was a place of realness, of being - ironically - connected.

I found myself in the back of the car one evening, easing along a narrow, winding Pembrokeshire lane in the last of the summer sunlight. One hand was resting on the swell of my bump - a by-now-automatic gesture - and I found myself thinking about the baby.

We had decided to keep the baby's sex a surprise. And I - with my history of internet obsession, constant diets, and total preoccupation with my appearance - found myself in paroxysms of terror... What if the baby was a girl? How would I protect my daughter? What could I teach her that would keep her safe from the crippling messages - how to look, dress, behave, think - that society insists women must labour under? Though my baby was a boy, he needs me just as much as any daughter would have, and he needs all of me - not the spare bits left after a wedding diet, or the half of my brain not preoccupied with writing witty captions for his Instagram photos.

Since childhood, I have felt driven to document my existence. As if, if I didn't present the sum total of my life and experiences for others to review, to admire, to pass judgement on, I don't really exist. Therefore, to find myself under the warm summer sun with nothing but a good book and good company - and no way of telling people about it - I at first felt anxious, panicky. What use was a holiday if no one knew what a good time I was having? What good was it to relax if that girl I fell out with three years ago wasn't jealous of how damn relaxed I was? Every trip I'd taken since the advent of home internet had been dissected online, sometimes for a wide audience during my stint as a Goth blogger. My trip to Cornwall several months previous had been photographed from every angle, and at the end of each day I stretched out my legs on the floral duvet of our B&B bed and presented that day's doings to Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat. As though that had been the point. 

Part of the reason I stopped blogging was because I had started living my life FOR the blog - choosing my activities, experiences and outfits through the lens of how I would write it up later, and what I thought would look good to my readers. My every movement, choice, purchase was curated for my invisible audience. Instead of being me, I was performing me. 

And now, a decade later, I still hadn't stopped. My image had changed, my platform had changed, but the actions were the same. Haul posts. Selfies. Outfit of the day. (And here I am blogging again! Irony, right?! But I'm hoping that weekly posts and relative anonymity will allow me a creative outlet without turning into MY ENTIRE LIFE.)

Instagram was my favourite platform. I posted daily. My phone was connected to me by an invisible umbilical. Once outdoorsy, I could no longer function without WiFi. Worryingly, I noticed my attention span being obliterated - I stopped being able to read books without checking my phone every few paragraphs, then lengthy articles. I struggled to take in the meaning of the words on the page, I was so preoccupied. Soon I couldn't follow the plot of a movie because my attention was on my phone. My writing, a constant since childhood, dried up. In my teens, when we still had dial up and a PC, I'd often been online up to eight hours a day. Now, I was waking up at 2am to check for new likes.

At first, Instagram recaptured my childhood joy in documenting my world. From mixtapes to diaries, I have always enjoyed the process of capturing and showcasing snapshots of a given moment in time. My first really big purchase, circa age thirteen, was a handheld camcorder, which saw years of heavy use as my friends and I recorded interviews, snippets of daily life and deeply questionable comedy skits, before VHS technology became sadly outdated. 

So at first blush, I thrilled to Instagram. I used it like a photo diary, but four years in, using the app for around five hours a day, I was not only addicted but concerned about the messages I was putting out. Look what I've bought! Look how quirky I am! Notice me, you guys, I'm being authentic as hard as I can! Again, my life had become about how it appeared from the outside. I was desperate for people to see the 'real me', to notice my uniqueness. Eventually, I began to feel almost as though the things I did weren't relevant if they weren't documented on Instagram. 

Technology and shopping became irresistibly intertwined. Like an influencer? Buy her outfit. Toilet break? ASOS awaits. I didn't realise that what I was doing, essentially, was continually marketing to myself. I couldn't stop shopping until I stopped browsing. And when I tried to stop browsing... I couldn't.

Authenticity and Consumption

Everything we do is online. For a long time, I thought that the best way to be myself in a world where everyone is watching was to strive for total transparency in the name of authenticity. I figured it was kinda punk of me to post bedheaded, no-make-up selfies, to not (appear to) worry about whether or not I looked good. 

However, I wasn't doing anything in real life. Life was something that happened around me, outside the bubble I was in. Just as I once did with my Goth blog, I was buying things and going places purely to have the photo to post online. Case in point: I recently looked back at photos of me that my friend Alice took when we had a girls' weekend in London. In all but one candid snap of me, guess what I'm doing? That's right, I'm on Instagram. Head down, looking at my phone. Even in the Sherlock Holmes Museum. Even in the National Gallery, for chrissakes. 

I was addicted to Instagram just as I had once obsessed over my blog, to the detriment of all else. Except modern apps made the addictive, obsessive behaviours even more damaging - not only was I once again pouring all my time into an online persona, but this time the nature of social media meant that it was affecting my confidence, my sleep, my memory, my ability to converse... I was scrolling through Instagram during conversations, under the table (how rude and obnoxious!).

Even GoodReads, which I had previously thought of as a fairly innocuous way to discover new books, has its pitfalls. For the uninitiated, GoodReads is an app where you can track what you're reading, read and share reviews, and get book recommendations based on what you've liked. However, GoodReads also runs an annual reading challenge, where the goal is simply to read a number of books (you choose your mileage) in a year. Reading has always been one of my greatest pleasures, but I found that the GoodReads challenge turned it into a numbers game. I wanted to get lost in books again, to meander and amble, not plough through them to meet an arbitrary goal. Like so much of modern life, GoodReads puts the emphasis on consumption, rather than enjoyment. 

Escaping from my need to present my life, my thoughts, my heart and soul online, was difficult. Each day with my baby boy, I yearned to post each new expression, discovery and sound. He quickly learned to hate my phone as a rival, beginning to cry each time I reached for it. When I started the shopping ban and was forced to cut down on browsing time, I remembered that trip to Wales and how pleasant life could be when I stopped being under the thumb of social media. Reading what I want - no GoodReads challenges. Life for living, not a continual performance.

Life Without The 'Gram

June came hot and humid. I'd deleted my social media apps and found myself abruptly adrift in reality, without the crutches I had become accustomed to. I started sleeping with my phone outside the bedroom, turned off notifications for email, and used my tablet only for reading ebooks. At first I was irritable, anxious, checking phantom vibrations and hiding my phone in ever more tricky-to-access places to stop me picking it up habitually. I installed a timer app to keep my usage under control.

Unable to shop, unable to kill time on social media, I found myself suddenly in possession of swathes of time. My son was no longer a needy loud creature distracting me from the important things I needed to do online, he was a little person, desperate for his mummy's undivided attention. I started baking cookies. I invited friends over. I caught up with Vikings and Bake-Off - able to watch entire episodes at a time, something I couldn't do when I was entirely caught up in gadgetry. I started to go outside, taking the Spud for daily walks in the buggy. 

Unfortunately, this newfound reengagement with the physical world proved to be my downfall, albeit in a very minor way. On Day 35, my dad took me and the Spud to a village fete. It was idyllic, quintessentially British; a blue sky with fluffy white clouds, thatched cottages, bunting riffling in the warm breeze. Spud and I shared a bowl of fat ripe strawberries and cream in the shade of a mammoth oak tree. And, entirely without thinking, I got chatting to a local beekeeper selling her wares, and cheerfully, unthinkingly, broke the shopping ban - a £1 honey lip balm! 

I didn't even realise what I'd done until we were in the car on the way home, and then I had to laugh - of all the things I could have bought, it certainly could have been worse. At least I'd supported a local craftsperson with my slip, and I was hardly the last of the big spenders! Still, I was a little disappointed at breaking my streak, and astonished at how mindlessly I had made a purchase.

Small mistakes aside, it was during this month that the reality of my financial situation began to sink in. With no further income of my own, the years ahead looked bleak and frightening. I started looking at our household budget to see what could be tightened up, the beginnings of an interest in frugality and thrift, a mindset which both my parents had tried to instill.

In an odd way, I felt sad at times at the prospect of going for such a long period without just buying whatever I wanted. But I could already sense that it might come to be liberating; more money for travelling, meals out, days at the beach, and freedom from indoctrination - perhaps I might develop an immunity to advertising, social media envy, comparison. How good might it feel, to just step off the consumer carousel and walk away?

Accountability Corner

Lastly, a little update on how I have been doing this week - up until this morning, I can report that things were going really well, I am at 33 days into my ban and counting. I actually felt I had a bit of a breakthrough this week. Something expensive I'd been thinking about buying for a while was on special offer. My partner suggested I was clear to make the purchase, as it leaned more towards the experiential than the material (although on reflection I'm not sure I agree). I got as far as adding to cart and entering my details... Then I closed the tab. Because I'd approached the purchase more slowly and thoughtfully than usual, I was able to notice that I felt uncomfortable and recognise that spending the money wasn't sitting right with me, instead of just pushing on anyway for the buying high. Later, I learned that the purchase wouldn't have met my needs anyway, so I'd saved myself an expensive flop.

However, this morning I found some Re-Fashion discount codes when I was deleting old emails. I didn't want them to be wasted, so I offered one to a friend and used one myself - £5 off a £15 dress (Collectif, purple velvet wrap dress - stunning). I okayed the purchase in advance with my partner and my mum (as you do!), and they both said it didn't count as a ban break. But I'm not so sure - was it a good use of resources available, or technically breaking my own rules, second-hand clothes still being clothes? Let me know what you think!

I'd also like to say thank you to my talented friend Georgie of Georgie Writes, who inspired me to start this blog in the first place and has been ever so encouraging and supportive, and to all my other friends who are taking the time to check in here every week and see what I'm rambling about. Thank you so much for reading my words!