Has anyone else read the book 7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess by Jen Hatmaker? This book is kind of un-doing me. It's amazing. I'm thinking about it all the time, I'm making my husband engage in long conversations about it while laying in bed, I'm texting him about it during the workday. And I'm not even finished reading it (according to Kindle I'm 70% done...I don't know what the last 30% holds...probably more un-doing...)
Jen is the wife of a pastor, the mom of 5 kids, bible teacher, speaker and author. And one day she decided she was overwhelmed with how far from Jesus' commands to live simply, love the poor, give away our possessions, love our neighbor, and take care of His creation they were. After months of praying, brainstorming, and consulting with close friends, inviting them into this process with her, she came up with the idea of 7. She chose 7 areas of life: clothing, spending, food, possessions, media, stress and waste and she and her family (to varying degrees) spent one month focused on each one. Each month they made seven simple choices to simplify life in that area. For instance, in the possessions month, as a family they gave away seven things a day every day for the 4 weeks. For the media month, they chose 7 technological items to fast from (texting, internet--except for email as a communication tool--but no facebook!, video games, TV, radio, and two others I'm not remembering right now). Her book is a very very funny recounting of their experiences each month along with a lot of very challenging thoughts on Jesus, on what he said about living and how he told us to live in this world. She's hysterical, real, down to earth, and very honest about how hard some of these months were for her (especially the food month where she literally chose only 7 foods to eat all month. Not 7 meals. 7 foods: eggs, chicken, avocado, sweet potatoes, apples, whole wheat bread, and spinach. No butter, no condiments, no nothing, just those 7 foods--her kids didn't participate in that month with her and her husband by the way!)
As I read her accounts, I find myself hungering for more simplicity in our own lives. So much so that I'm enlisting my husband to join me for the month of October on some of our own variations of 7. No, we're not going to only choose 7 foods to eat, but I am choosing 7 dinners and will make only those 7 meals for the month. No more spending time doing complicated menu planning or grocery shopping--just 7 favorite family meals for one month. (for those who are curious, our 7 will be: Turkey Lettuce Wraps, Spaghetti with Turkey Meatballs, Crock Pot Chicken Tortilla Soup, Crock Pot BBQ Pulled Pork, BBQ Chicken Quesadillas, one night will be a freezer crock pot meal that is already in my freezer, and our Friday night date night will be a meal from Trader Joes--we love splitting their sushi and salads) That's it, that's what we're eating this month, menu planning is done. I know this isn't a revolutionary concept and many families do this, but we never have because I always say I love variety too much. But I also love the idea of having more time to spend on things other than menu planning and grocery list making. I am hungry for simplicity.
The other area Jen and her family simplified that has my attention was in regards to spending money. It was not necessarily the amount of money they were spending each month (although she said she was disgusted at how they nickel and dimed themselves every month--$4 here, $3 there...) but it was more the sheer number of places they spent money. She went through their credit card bills and counted the number of places that got their money each month, which inspired me to do the same. It is nuts how many places we spend money that we really don't even think about! I counted over 20 different vendors on each month's bill for the past couple months. Her commitment for that month was to choose only 7 places they were allowed to spend money. Normal bill paying didn't count--so Verizon and the power company still got paid but wasn't one of their 7. But 7 stores. That's it. (Which prompted a hysterical scene when her 7th grader needed a hair cut but super cuts wasn't one of their 7...it involved her husband, a pair of clippers, and a very dramatic display of emotion on the part of her son...) This was guaranteed to cut down on the frivolous "$3 here, $4 there" spending, and forced them to think through what their needs where and where they met those needs each month.
We've decided to try this. We'll see how it goes. We're taking inspiration from the Hatmaker family, we looked at their list of places they chose, and created our own list while laying in bed last night (seriously my husband will be glad when I'm done with this book and I can just let him go to sleep at night!) Here's our list for the month:
1. Trader Joes
2. Sprouts (where I buy my produce and bulk food items like dried beans and quinoa at way less than any other grocery store has it)
3. Mobile gas station (yup, gotta have a way to fill up the car throughout the month!)
4. Ralphs (I contemplated not including this since I like Trader Joes and Sprouts way better, but it's literally a block from my house and to not include this seemed like a choice we'd really regret when we run out of milk at 7 AM.)
5. Target (yes we realize you can buy everything at Target so it seems like a "cheater" choice, but it's on here as a last resort choice--ie: we run out of diapers or we need something for the car or a birthday gift for some upcoming birthdays)
6. Freebirds Burritos. Allow me to explain this one! First, a huge part of my husband's job is meeting people for lunch or grabbing food with youth or volunteers. To not have a local eating establishment on our list seemed unreasonable. And second, our child goes to bed at 7, which means I can't leave the house after that usually. One of the spontaneous dates Charles and I have always loved doing is the 9 PM food run (where we used to go together, but now I sit at home with the babe and he goes...) So sometimes on days when he literally works a 13 hour day (ie: Sundays....), he'll stop by Freebirds after youth group and bring home chips and queso and we'll debrief the day together as our in home date. We may be really sick of Freebirds after this month, but we both agreed it had to go on the list!
7. Gayle's Perks Coffee Shop. This one was a non-negotiable on my list. It's a cute local coffee shop about 2 miles from our house, but it is my sanctuary. I only get to go for about 2 hours each Friday morning when Charles is home with Aidan, but for those 2 hours I get to forget about being a mom, I get to write, I get to sip a latte and savor a yummy crepe for breakfast. It's my date with myself, and these me-dates make me a way more relaxed Mommy!
There you have it. Our list of 7. We'll see how this goes. We'll see what these choices do to our credit card bill this month, and what it does to our concept of necessities. If we already have a gift card to somewhere, we are allowed to use that, but we aren't allowed to go over the limit of the card. No more last minute run to Michaels for some random craft supply I really don't need. No fast food runs, or trips to Home Goods or Carters or Babies R Us or other stores that sell all kinds of fun things that I'm not really sure I need. It means Halloween costumes will need to come from our closets or be borrowed or Target if we're really desperate! As we turn down other opportunities to spend money on things we really don't need, I'm hoping our attitude will be the same as that of Jen's daughter when they were forced to say no to dinner out with friends: "It's okay Mommy, we have a warm house to go home to, and food to eat there, and the people who live on the streets don't have any of those things. We don't really need to go to a restaurant, it's okay." Out of the mouths of babes....
Has anyone else read 7? Has anyone else been inspired by this book to make any changes or simplify various areas of life? I'd be curious to hear from you....does this sound insane? A worthless experiment? A meaningful spiritual discipline? If anyone wants to join us in this experiment, let me know!
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