The Year Without a Purchase
One Family's Quest to Stop Shopping and Start Connecting
The Year Without a Purchase
One Family's Quest to Stop Shopping and Start Connecting
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Publisher: Westminster/John Knox Press,U.S.
ISBN: 9780664260682
Number of Pages: 272
Published: 30/08/2015
Width: 15.2 cm
Height: 22.9 cm
The Year without a Purchase is the story of one family's quest to stop shopping and start connecting.
Scott Dannemiller and his wife, Gabby, are former missionaries who served in Guatemala. Ten years removed from their vow of simple living, they found themselves on a never-ending treadmill of consumption where each purchase created a desire for more and never led to true satisfaction.
The difference between needs and wants had grown very fuzzy, and making that distinction clear again would require drastic action: no nonessential purchases for a whole year. No clothes, no books, no new toys for the kids. If they couldn't eat it or use it up within a year (toilet paper and shampoo, for example), they wouldn't buy it.
Filled with humorous wit, curious statistics, and poignant conclusions, the book examines modern America's spending habits and chronicles the highs and lows of dropping out of our consumer culture. As the family bypasses the checkout line to wrestle with the challenges of gift giving, child rearing, and keeping up with the Joneses, they discover important truths about human nature and the secret to finding true joy.
The Year without a Purchase offers valuable food for thought for anyone who has ever wanted to reduce stress by shopping less and living more.
Part One: Living with Integrity
1. Darth Vader and the Call from God
2. Doing Nothing for God
3. How to Screw Up a Good Thing
4. The Rules
5. The Monster under the Bed
Part Two: Owning What We Have
6. Our Little Science Experiment
7. Darn!
8. The Price Is Right?
9. The Businessman and His Baggie
10. The Power of Stuff
11. Filling the Void
12. Coach Burgess and the Brainiacs
13. Two, Four, Six, Eight, What Do I Appreciate?
14. Christ Is Risen! Let's Go to Arby's!
15. True Confessions
16. The Worst Parents Ever
Part Three: Growing in Faith Together
17. Yoga Pants and Jock Straps
18. Naked in the Flat
19. The Purge
20. Good-bye Nana Claus
21. Our Discipline Problem
22. The Most Awkwardly Awesome Prom Ever
23. The Perfect Birthdayâ€"Just Add Aqua Velva
24. What Do You Get the Woman Who Has Everything?
25. Gala People?
Part Four: Serving God's People
26. Ontario with Ellis
27. My Better Half
28. Brainiacs Revisited
29. Filling
30. A Homemade Halloween
31. Christmas Tree Carnage
32. The Santa Clause
33. The Belly of the Beast
34. Christmas Present
Part Five: The Results
35. Year in Review
"In bite-sized morsels of real-life struggles iced with wit, candor, and faith, Dannemiller serves up a way of life in which you learn to like the taste of living with what you have and reducing your helpings of a gluttonous spending in order to live a life in community and service."-- Gene Wilkes, Ph.D., author of Jesus on Leadership and President, B. H. Carroll Theological Institute, Irving, TX
"This book--playful, thoughtful, substantial--is a must-read for North American Christians who are purposing to pattern their lives after the person of Jesus. It provides an honest glimpse into one family's experiment in living more simply and charts a path for the rest of us as we attempt to live faithfully in the world today."-- Margot Starbuck, author of Small Things With Great Love: Adventures in Loving Your Neighbor
"Often hilarious and always thought provoking, Scott Dannemiller deftly peels back the layers of what we want, what we think we need, what we actually need, and who we really are underneath it all. You'll finish this book motivated to do more with less and feeling like you've just had a very satisfying conversation with a good friend about what really matters in life. Hint: It's NOT 'stuff!'"-- Lindsay Ferrier, blogger at Suburban Turmoil (www.suburbanturmoil.com)
"The Year without a Purchase is as compelling to read as it is challenging to personalize. Very few books can actually change your life, but this is absolutely one of them."--Lee J. Colan, Ph.D., author of Stick with It: Mastering the Art of Adherence
