Buying into a no `news' lifestyle.

Byline: Diane Dietz The Register-Guard

Dotted across the U.S. landscape are families setting out today on what passes in the modern world as a grand adventure: They're setting out to buy nothing new for all of 2007.

They're joining a global anti-consumer compact that started at Christmas time a year ago in San Francisco.

Participants include Cottage Grove math teacher Alla Blanca, Sweet Home book keeper Bonnie Thayer and Portland nurse Katy Wolk-Stanley.

"It struck a chord with me as I was madly scrambling to pull Christmas together," Wolk-Stanley said. "I'm actually Jewish, and here I am working so hard to make a nice Christmas for everybody and not feeling really positive about the whole thing."

The two-principle Compact was started when 10 San Francisco area friends at a Christmas party were discussing the limits of recycling in a consumer-driven society.

They decided to try a no-new consumption lifestyle for a year to "reduce the impact of consumer culture in our lives."

They wrote of their experiences on a blog; The San Francisco Chronicle and Washington Post newspapers told their story - and in the months since dozens of "compacting" groups have sprung up in cities as far flung as London, Jerusalem and Tokyo.

The two-principle Compact - named loosely after the Mayflower Compact and referring to living for the greater good - challenges participants to first, forego the purchase of new products, and, second, to get what they need by borrowing, bartering or buying used.

"There's sort of an adventurousness," said Alla Blanca of Cottage Grove, who says she's embarking on The Compact today.

Why not buy?

Three recent events inspired Blanca to take the plunge.

First, her parents wanted to buy her a Christmas present but she couldn't think of a single thing she needed.

Second, she read a news story about The Compact and looked up the group's Web site. And, third, she was inspired by her 14-year-old nephew, Ricky, who successfully gave up chocolate for all of 2006.

Not only is Blanca, 43, going to forego buying new, she's going to try to avoid accumulating used stuff.

"I'm going to try and keep my nephew in mind, and his two-pronged approach: Is there an alternative? And, if there isn't, can I do without it?"she said.

In Portland, meanwhile, Wolk-Stanley said she'll stick her toe in and follow The Compact for a month.

She's already an avid thrift shop buyer and has been since she was pregnant with her second son, who is now 8.

She realized that if she could break her got-to-have-it-now habits, she could work half time and be home with her boys.

"People make their own lives too difficult," she said. "You're having to work more because you end up eating in restaurants too often, but the reason why you're eating in restaurants is you're working all the time. You're getting this cycle that's hard to break."

Wolk-Stanley said she's no radical but she's uneasy with global consumerism and rampant waste.

"Long after my children would have grown up, the packaging from their Transformers and Bionicals - or whatever - will still exist."

In Sweet Home, meanwhile, Bonnie Thayer, 60, has stocked up on new books and has joined with her son and his girlfriend to live The Compact, beginning today.

She's unhappy about the way she uses shopping. She's single in a town of marrieds and she said she gets bored, and that's when she goes shopping: loading her home with books, CDs, and scrap booking supplies.

She fills her house with things, then gives them away. But with more shopping, the space fills again.

"The more stuff you get in the house, the more suffocated you begin to feel," she said. "You have to stop. It's not good."

Thayer's 42-year-old son, Larry Coonrod, said he found himself growing resentful at Christmas time. He'd buy things for his nieces, but within a few weeks they'd have forgotten all about the presents.

His grandfather, Coonrod said, lived frugally and when he died he didn't owe a penny.

Retail rules

Compactors spend a lot of time figuring out the rules of the game.

Right away the San Francisco friends realized that reasonable exemptions would have to apply - food and medicines, for instance, brake fluid, tires and underwear. They could agree on such things.

Some compactors also exempt services such as massages, dance lessons, art classes and charitable donations. Also, many will buy new items made by a local artist or crafts person.

The original Compactors don't publish unbending rules, but instead, suggest prospective compactors to use the fair and reasonable person standard.

"You'll know in your heart when you're rationalizing a violation," the Web site instructions say.

Some worry they'll begin to look a little dowdy in second-hand clothes, but Wolk-Stanley said it's worked to the contrary for her children.

She shops thrift stores and finds Nordstrom, Land's End and Hanna Andersson clothes for her boys. "They have very nice things. It's just somebody else got to pay the full price to begin the process," she said.

On the other hand, "They have slightly wonky hair cuts sometimes - because I cut it - but they don't care," she said.

Wolk-Stanley said she sometimes gets flak from her fellow nurses in the labor and delivery unit at her Portland hospital unit.

"They're like `Oh, you bought used shoes for your kids?' I'm like, `Yes. Do you work full time to buy $70 tennis shoes for your kids?' "

Unpatriotic?

The Compactors say they'll borrow and barter, but many of the Oregon neophytes say that's easier said than done.

The very idea of borrowing makes some of them uneasy.

Thayer bought a drill to assemble a bookcase rather than borrow a neighbors even though the drill is likely to join the unused and overflowing pile in her attic.

"It's almost like we're ashamed that we don't own (a drill)," she said. "I have this pride thing."

Katy Wolk-Stanley said she's learned to borrow with her neighbors. They use her lawn mower; she borrows their extra chairs when she has a party.

"I'm very careful not to be a mooch from people. I don't borrow from people who don't feel comfortable borrowing from me," she said.

Some compactors face skeptical family members. Blanca's husband and three children, for instance, aren't climbing on board.

"They want to know, `How will this affect me? Will I not get the graduation gift I want and deserve because of you?' '' she said.

On the other hand, her decision not to buy will help her to be able to afford the braces that one of her kids needs and a laptop for her child who is heading to college.

Compactors are also face a societal backlash.

Radio talk shows have suggested that retail abstinence is un-American and might damage the country.

None of the compactors seem to believe they'll make a dent in anybody else's behavior.

"I don't' see enough people stepping onto this trend other than to cause a small ripple," Blanca said.

Thayer questions if heavy consumer spending is really patriotic. She's a bookkeeper and sees how many people's wages are docked to cover unsatisfied credit.

"Everybody has tons of debt," she said. "You wouldn't call that the American Way either - or the way America used to be."

THE COMPACT A loose-knit global campaign started a year ago in San Francisco that eschews. They conduct long discussions about how to do without buying things. Log-on: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/thecompact