Introduce Yourself

I'm so excited to get this forum going! I'm Rebecca, co-author of The Buy Nothing, Get Everything Plan and co-founder of the Buy Nothing Project with my friend Liesl Clark. When I'm not here, I'm busy raising two teens as a single mother, writing, helping non-profits with social media storytelling, baking challah for my community, and raising tiny lavender chickens in my backyard. One of my favorite aspects of Buying Nothing is the lending library I steward for my hometown, and harnessing my inner Grandma Inge (my family's Buy Nothing Macgyver) to fix, make and reuse for the creative challenge and joy of it.

Hey all! So thrilled to be here in a new-ish platform to be able to talk all things conserving-resources. This is my passion. We, as a species, are throwing way too much away, wasting true resources that can be reused, upcycled, refurbished, re-gifted, re-imagined. I'm a filmmaker/writer/storyteller using images and words to show, through science and my own personal experience, what is happening right now with climate change. I want to use my skills to keep building community around using-up what we already have in abundance before we take more raw materials from the earth to manufacture more. I have two smart energetic teens and an adventure-seeking husband, so we find ourselves in places far and away learning from like-minded people everywhere who share with us their own ways of honoring this Earth. If you're up for having a hard-knocks conversation about how we can stave off overconsumption, share more, and not throw away perfectly usable things, while acquiring just what we need in life, let's talk!

Hello! I am Katylin. I am married to MrJ and we steward and parent two boys, Enoch and Seraphim. Over the years, I had set aside my own identity as when I married MrJ I took on his whole name, watch out 1950's you don't have anything on me! I am officially Mrs.J but you can call me Katylin. I often use our initials as I want to be actively reminded that ALL the time I give to others, no matter the medium, from Facebook to volunteering in person, is time away from my family.

Our icon is our initials wrought in iron stamps. For me, they represent the strength and steadfastness that our family holds. Our family is more than just the parts ὂλος we are holism, and that is why we as a family choose to live with a giving economy being at the forefront of our family's actions. When we reuse we are saving an item from being recycled (which time has shown most items are not actually recycled). When we give freely we are open to receiving what will fill that new space as well as creating new bonds with others. When we repurpose we are saving our resources and ultimately a little sliver of the world for our children's children.

I grew up in a powerful concrete city, plastered and pounding with bulletin board ads, excitedly selling a single serving, completely disposable 21st-century digital world, bigger, harder, faster, more more more... But in the middle of culture's shopping-as-a-pastime-frenzy, over the television, the radio, the newspaper, and magazines I could hear a soft but steady voice say, "none of this will bring you joy. None of this will bring you happiness, peace, or lasting pleasure.  None of this will define you. Do not store your treasures here." Leaving my city of angels for the emerald city of rain, I powerfully and intently changed the way I lived. I never dreamed that my love of scrimping, saving, repurposing, patching, repairing, thrifting, homesteading, sharing, asking, borrowing, reused gifting, passing along, handing down, recycling up, dumpster diving, city gleaning, pea gardens growing, and on-&-off the playa living )'(  would be a movement that would "both spark joy" and "build community". All of these practices were organically found in the Buy Nothing Project for me.  Here in the Buy Nothing Project, I have found my tribe. We together can change the way we think, the way we live and ultimately effectually change our neighborhood and community by giving. Giving our time, giving our things, sharing our lives, sharing this evident truth, that together we are best.

Hi all, I live in a small town just outside of Ottawa, Canada. I was born in the forties and my parents were old enough to easily have been grandparents to many of my friends. Given the times they grew up in, the mindset/culture in my family was to reuse and recycle pretty much everything one possibly could. Not being born into a consumer culture I have always felt uncomfortable with waste, with single use items, and with here-today gone-tomorrow purchases. Giving is an antidote to that discomfort - a joyous act. Supporting the Buy Nothing Project is one thing I can do to help reduce waste, and return joy to people's lives.

Thanks so much for joining us, Pat! I can identify with your discomfort with waste. My mother is very frugal and uses up everything in the household, many things that she uses are items she received around the time when she and my father got married, some 60 years or so ago. I love the pride she has in showing off these well-made useful items she would never dream of tossing. I love that you articulate how giving can fit into our current consumer culture, and provide joy. Thank you so much for participating in the Buy Nothing movement. We feel like we're at the very beginning of something that each of us can contribute toward growing worldwide, simply refusing to buy so much stuff.

Wonderful! Thanks for the good energy here 😍

Thanks for joining us, Mary!

Hello, I'm Carolyn Overcash from NC. I'm now retired; therefore, I'm probably older than some in this group.

I have used the rolling blade push mower that is people-powered, a scrub board and tin tub, helped dig a hole for an outhouse, helped move it, and filled in the <gasp, gross> hole with dirt. I have felled trees, cut and stacked wood, hauled coal, cleaned wood or coal stoves. Then again, I have helped build buildings, roofed houses, painted the inside and outside of homes. I have hauled water from a creek and pulled a bucket from a well. I have hung clothes on a clothesline that then freeze before you get finished hanging the rest of the clothing in the basket. I learned to scratch cook at my mother's side. You planned the next meal based on what you were fixing now. I learned to hem, sew, repair tears, and sew on buttons.

Growing up in a family of six, we super reused things. Our home was multigenerational with grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins who were sometimes living in our family's home. My sisters and I shared a bedroom with one grandma. Money was tight; both parents were disabled. We learned to repurpose or reuse lots of things.

My mom did Marie Kondo, and Swedish Death cleaning before the authors that wrote of these systems were even born. If you did not want or need something, you found someone who did. If you could do without something, and someone had a real need, you gave them what they needed.

When I got married, everything I owned fit in a medium suitcase, except for my winter coat.

After marriage, when my daughter was small, we used cloth diapers, not disposable. Cannot even find them in a store now, think of the savings to a young family. You can still get them online.

In June, hubby and I will celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary, we have been in our 1925 built house for over 44 years. We have been turning the home, built for active health mill workers, into a home for retirees with physical limitations.

Aside from my moral compass, which springs from my faith, I would recommend that everyone watch the movie "Pay It Forward." No matter where we are in our life's journey, we can always offer someone a helping hand.

In today's climate of bashing and fault finding, I have to remember to look for the good and make sure that I am not an anchor dragging someone down. I wake up each day with a prayer of thankfulness; things could always be worse.

Thank you so much for that extraordinary sobering personal life perspective! 👏

Thank you, Carolyn, for your poignant words. I so agree with how important it is to remember the good in things, in this climate, as too often the vocal minority, who like to insult and demean, set the tone. Rebecca and I often feel that talking about "Buying Nothing" can bring such anger and misunderstanding from people. And so we pick ourselves up each day and try to explain again how non-consumerism has shaped our lives for the better. Although I grew up a generation after you, my parents' and family's ethic was similar to your upbringing, yet very different from most of my friends' experiences and, interestingly, I'm longing for those days again, have tried to raise my own children with the same values of making things and growing things from scratch, using simple machines, not being dependent upon the "grid" because too often we can't use it anyway with the constant power outages we have in the winters here. Now we're all making do with what we have right in our cupboards, shelves and refrigerators until they're close to bare, due to this pandemic and it's an instant lesson in learning to make things stretch as long as we can, and finding value and use in everything, rather than tossing it.

I am not a 'great' online shopper, but I managed to order more than one copy of the book, and they arrived today. I am eager to get into the book, and to learn about 'The Plan.' I live in the beautiful Issaquah Creek watershed. Our storm drains say 'Puget Sound Starts Here,' as a reminder that we are stewards of water that flows from here to Lake Sammamish, and then to Lake Washington, and then to Lake Union, and then.... to Puget Sound. That's the short version of a 49+ mile long story!