Serena Brown

i use the app "notion" to track all of my school work and due dates, along with all of my purchases and finances. since it's almost the end of the month, i went through my statements and the app to copy down the purchases i missed. while doing this i noticed the ungodly amount of money i spend on food (iced coffee) and clothes, which is still something i am trying to work on decreasing. but going through my calendars, trackers, and statements helped me to put my spending into perspective.

this morning i got up early to help my brothers and sister make and pack their breakfast and lunch. it took forever but at least i was able to plan my own  meals as well

since the rest of my siblings go back to school today, my sister and i made a list of meals that could be made using the food we just got from the grocery store. we came up with a lot of simple things like breaded chicken, pasta, salad, porkchops, etc. but there's 8 of us and we all go to school or work so we needed to find things that could be made quickly or in advance. 

after finally unpacking all of my clothes, my sister and i are going to go through them tomorrow and organize them into a few different categories. we're separating them into: keep, upcycle, toss, donate, and donate to sister. i think the most important part of ethically purchasing clothes is being mindful of the clothes you already have, and how they can be repurposed.

today i went through my closet and wrote down a list of clothes i need, and a separate list of clothes i want. and thanks to sivanny's help i've been able to learn how to navigate second hand stores online and in person :) i will definitely be visiting these shops once my list is done! 

i modified my actions so that i could have two categories :) after hearing april ann mention that eating tuna everyday can be harmful, i realized i needed to plan my meals better! i usually just eat rice with salmon or tuna because it's super easy and quick to make. btw adding rice vinegar, furikake, shoyu, mayo, and sriracha then wrapping it in nori is the best thing ever. but i digress, my new action is to plan at least 2 meals a day while being mindful of my purchases when it comes to clothes :]

today, i looked into my clothing purchases from june 2021 - sept 2021 and made a list of all the companies i purchased clothes from. unfortunately, after some research i found that a majority of the companies i bought from have lied about their ecological footprint or participate in fast fashion. my goal for this week is to try and find some small businesses or second hand shops that might potentially have clothes i'll need! 

for my ecochallenge actions, i chose to keep track of my spending when it comes to clothes. i'm keeping an eye specifically on clothes that could be considered part of fast-fashion or from companies that greenwash or aren't transparent about their impact on the environment.