sandmoose.com

We haven’t posted any Consuming Luton article recently because our consuming has been on hiatus for a while. Not that we don’t consume at all. We’ve just been doing our consuming a little here and a little bit there. We haven’t had a blowout weekend of consuming for a long time. I believe this is a good thing. After all, the richest person is not who has the most but who needs the least.

However, all that changed this past weekend. The Consuming Lutons have returned with a vengeance! We went to Emeryville and just couldn’t be stopped. Everywhere we went, we consumed. Here’s the rundown.

Tyler’s Chair
We got Tyler’s chair at Pottery Barn Kids. He loves his chair and it was definitely a good buying decision. He sits in it to watch his DVDs and loves to climb all over it during the day.

Printer Ink Cartridges
We had to get replacement ink cartridges for our printer.

Quicken
I’ve been a longtime Microsoft Money user. Mainly because I’ve always received a copy with my new computers. However, the more I use the budgeting and planning tools the more frustrated I become with seemingly unexplainable behavior. Considering the important of financial planning and budgeting we decided to get Quicken and see if it handles these functions better. It’ll also help make our long-term switch to Macs and OSX in our house go smoother.

The Sims 2
So we’re in CompUSA. We see The Sims 2 sitting there on the shelf. How can we not walk out of the store with this game? It should be worth it though as it will provide Emily and myself with hours of entertainment. However, we discovered my Toshiba laptop is too weak to run the game. At all! It’s just doesn’t run slow. It’s runs very very slow to the point where it’s impossible to do anything. Emily’s desktop computer, however, has no problems with it.

That’s it. Since we spent pretty much our entire consuming budget the past weekend don’t expect to see another Consuming Lutons entry for a while.

Tyler Stuff
We took a trip to Babies R Us for some bowls and bibs. We also got Tyler a LeapStart Learning Table. This is a pretty cool little toy that will entertain as well as educate. Check out the interactive flash demo.

Kitchen Island
Our kitchen is pretty cluttered. Who would think that by adding a piece of furniture to the kitchen would make it cleaner and give us more counter space? Emily. That’s who. We got a little kitchen island at Lowes that has given us some much needed surface space to put stuff on. As a result our kitchen has more counter space and looks more open as well.

Tivo Hacks
The factory warranty on our Tivo has long since expired so I’m not all that worried about voiding the warranty anymore. Specifically, I’m interested in getting it hooked up to our network and adding some more drive space. Being able to archive shows to our file server or CD-RW would be nice too. O’Reilly publishes the best technical books on the planet so I decided to get their Tivo Hacks book. We’re already getting use out of the “30-second skip” hack.

Flowers
Emily wanted to spruce up our front porch area so she got some flowers.

Sting Tickets
I forgot to include the most expensive purchase of the week the first time I posted this. We have two tickets to the Sting concert for Oct 3rd at the Concord Pavilion.

Old Navy – Shirts
Emily wanted to get a couple of new shirts to expand her wardrobe with some items significantly different from her normal fare.

Amazon.com – Ink Cartridges
When you print photos with your printer you will eventually need to replace the ink cartridges. That time for us is now.

Apple Store – iLife ‘04
I really want the upgraded version of iPhoto which is supposed to be much faster than the current version. If it lives up to its claims I’ll be very happy indeed. I suppose the upgraded version of iMovie will be nice too. I’m not sure I’ll do all that much with Garage Band but I do have a few original songs from my music playing days I’d like re-record so I can have a digital copies.

The week before last we actually went a whole week without doing any consumer spending. This past week we managed to keep our consumer spending down to just one trip to Pottery Barn Kids. Emily got some baskets and basket liners for Tyler’s toys. She also got Tyler’s first Easter basket.

When we decided to starting posting The Consuming Lutons every week I was concerned we may not be able to keep up with it. Documenting all of your consumer spending each week is harder than it seems. However, I remain comitted to keeping up with this feature and will try better to keep it updated.

So here’s our consumer spending list for the weekend ending February 20, 2004

• Swimming Lessons for Tyler
  I wasn’t sure if I should include this one or not. But after thinking about it I decided that services do indeed count as consumer spending. Tyler has started taking his baths in a few inches of water in the big tub. He loves the water so much that Emily thought swimming lessons would be a good idea and I heartily agreed. Now of course Tyler isn’t going to learn how to actually swim. It’s more of a water awareness class so Tyler will learn how to be comfortable in the water.

• Shower Curtain Rings
  We now have shower curtain rings with little ducks on them in honor of Tyler’s obsession with his rubber duck.

• Teething Rings
  Marvin the dog managed to destory one of Tyler’s teething rings when they were in Oregon last week. We somehow lost his other one so we had to buy some new ones. I think our new ones are better than our old ones anyway. Now Tyler has something to chomp on again.

• Baby Clothes
  There’s no way I can keep track of each individual piece. Some of the clothes are gifts for friends. Some are for Tyler. One piece I do remember is his new little swimming trunks with blue flames on them. He is easily going to be the coolest baby at the pool.

• New Car Seat
  Tyler had outgrown his first car seat so it was time to get him a new one. Our new one should last through the next three phases of riding in the car. Rear facing, forward facing, and seatbelt booster. In other words, it’s the last car seat we’ll ever have to buy for Tyler so it will be well worth the money we spent.

Six Bags of Tree Bark
Our back yard is just a bunch of dirt so we got some large bark chips and spread it around in the back yard. This way Cali doesn’t get muddy feet when she goes outside.

Uru: Ages Beyond Myst
Emily is a big fan of the Myst games. She spotted this one at EB Games.

The Da Vinci Code
It seems to be a pretty popular book and Emily wanted to read it so we got it.

I’m a bit behind on these entries. Here’s what we bought the week before last.

Small Stroller
This one is a small stroller that is easier to walk around in crowded stores with.

Baby Gates
You would assume these would be to keep Tyler confined to certain parts of the house but he doesn’t actually move around on his own yet. They’re really to keep our dog Cali confined to certain parts of the house.

Changing Pad Covers
These are little covers that go over our “half-pipe” changing pad. It makes it a little more comfortable for Tyler.

Little Hangers
For little clothes.

Propane Tank
We needed a replacement for our propane tank so we could grill some ribs on Super Bowl Sunday.

For the week ending January 11 we did enough consumer spending to make up not shopping at all last week. Let’s take a look.

• Microwave Oven
  Our old microwave started making funny sounds and the light inside started flashing. We decided we needed a new one.

• Electric Blanket
  Queen size electric blanket with dual controls. Purely a luxury item.

• Bibs for Tyler
  A set of three bibs that come with three little finger puppets. We actually didn’t care about the bibs. We just wanted the finger puppets. We already have one that Tyler loves to chew on when he’s taking his bath. He loves it so much we decided we should get three more even it meant buying bibs we didn’t need. We actually have another name for the finger puppets. We call them “diddles”. Our original one is a duck so we call it ducky-diddles. With the three new ones we now have doggy-diddles, chicky-diddles, and teddy-diddles. Yes, when you become a parent you too will adopt some rather strange practices. Or is it just us?

• Shower Curtain
  Most people probably don’t replace their shower curtains as often as they should. Hint, when the bottom has white, green or black stuff caked on it then it’s time to get a new one.

• Pants
  I don’t know what size my own pants are. That’s something that happens to some men after they get married. You forget what size clothes you wear because your wife picks out everything for you. Well, naturally my mom asked me what size pants I wear when she was doing Christmas shopping. Bad idea! I gave her some numbers that were accurate about four or five years ago since that’s the last time I can remember shopping for myself. It turns out the pants my mom bought for me were way too small. So Emily went online and ordered some pants that will fit me better. One advantage to buying clothes online is that I don’t have to try anything on!

We will be traveling to Florida next week and will be staying there for 10 days. I’m sure we’ll do more consumer spending while we’re there. I’ll try my best to keep this site updated.

This is truly amazing. For the first full week in January we did absolutely no consuming whatsoever. Next week will be a different story but this week I can say we did not once venture to Target, Babies R Us, or Best Buy!

I’m starting a new feature here at sandmoose.com called “The Consuming Lutons”. Emily and I have noticed that almost every weekend we go to the mall or some huge shopping center and buy stuff. Over the past year we have started to ask ourselves some tough questions. Do we really need all of this crap we buy? Are we just mindless sheep who will buy whatever we are told is cool and fashionable by some marketing campaign? Is it really in our basic nature to be consumers to the point where we are buying new stuff every single week of the year? Is it possible to live life without going to IKEA or Target or Pottery Barn or Babies R Us or Best Buy all the time.

Okay, I know this is starting to sound like the beginning of Fight Club. However, I promise you that Emily and I will not start a club where young married couples beat the snot out of each other on the weekends. Nor will we try to blow up credit card company buildings in order to erase the nation’s debt record.

If I can digress for just a bit I would like to say that Emily and I do live without credit card debt and have been doing so for a couple of years. Anyway, back to the subject at hand.

We decided that one method for cutting down on our consumerist ways is to simply become more aware how much consuming we actually do. Every week I will do my best to chronicle our shopping outings on this site. The idea is that by having this information exposed in a public place such as this site will force us to face up to the reality of how much shopping we really do. There are, of course, some things that will be exempted such as groceries. We need food to live and Tyler needs diapers to poop and pee in so those don’t count as consumer spending in our book.

Our first report is for the weekend beginning December 27.

Pottery Barn
Emily got some stuff but I can’t remember what it all was. Emily says it’s Christmas stuff she got for 50% off.

Target
Pictures frames for the portraits we recently had done for Tyler. Little cup hooks so we can better organize our cupboards. Plastic containers so we can do yet more organizing.