Last day of vacation. Tomorrow I head home and put into practice all the ideas and changes I have been formulating over the past weeks. Now we see how well they (and I) hold up in our daily lives. Some, like eating real food, will be easy. Others, like not spending any extraneous money, won't be.

I have blogs and people to inspire me. A three foot munchkin to keep me motivated. A husband who wholeheartedly supports me and the true desire to make changes that will be fundamental to how the next part of my life unrolls.

On a completely separate note, a post on the Mr. Money Mustache forum led to a response that has had me thinking. I asked who else was doing The Compact in 2013 and one respondent said that she/he found the movement 'elitist'. My immediate reaction was of wonder, 'how could a movement to stop consuming be elitist?'. Then, as per usual with me, I pondered and mulled the thought over the next day or so and they're right. The Compact movement can definitely be an elitist movement. If you have so much that you're able or willing to stop buying anything new, not out of necessity, but because it makes you feel better as a person, you want to boost your savings, to help the Earth, or, as in my case, because I need to get control of a bad habit, you're already part of an elite group. If you wave the banner and preach down to everyone about how you're NON-CONSUMING and try to make them feel guilty for what they are buying, then you my friend, are an ass. I certainly hope I never do that and if I do, my friends have the perfect right to give me a swift kick to the keister and I'm sure they will.

I'm doing The Compact for me and for my family, because I have a feeding frenzy shopping habit that, while it hasn't led to debt in many years, it is definitely putting a strain on our ability to save money for our futures or to make those 'life experiences' happen that I so desperately want.