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BND for quiet people
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108 THINGS TO DO by yourself ON BUY NOTHING DAY... and everyday of the year.
  1. Celebrate Buy Nothing Day!
  2. Make a resolution/goal, which keeps the spirit of Buy Nothing Day in your life all year.
  3. Instead of buying a Christmas tree, decorate the plants in your garden or your house.
  4. Think what BND means to you.
  5. Go to the park and hold a FREE concert.
  6. Volunteer - contact your local volunteer centre for suggestions.
  7. Turn your mobile off and chill out.
  8. Go to the top of a tall building and look at the view.
  9. Get together with some friends and play a sport for fun, not points.
  10. Walk to work - take a map and find a new route every day.
  11. Make a new friend by starting a conversation about Buy Nothing Day.
  12. Sing in the shower.
  13. Go for a walk and admire the maple trees (Momiji) in the mountains.
  14. Collect wild food: mushrooms, wild greens and so on.
  15. Call your old friends from junior high school and catch up.
  16. Have a bath in candlelight.
  17. Ask for some of your grandmother's old kimono and obi. Use them to make pillows, hangings, bags, and so on.
  18. Learn to say “Thank you" in every language.
  19. Grow your own bean sprouts.
  20. Play the guitar / piano / harmonica etc.
  21. Use sewing or dyeing to remake your old clothes into new ones.
  22. Henna your hair.
  23. Collect scrap, like toilet rolls, fabric off cuts, paper, and plastic. Make toys from them and play with children.
  24. Arrange flowers.
  25. Ask the older people in your neighbourhood to help you find out the names of the plants in your local community.
  26. Go out in the evening and look for bats.
  27. Write a letter to your MP.
  28. Take up jogging.
  29. Finally take that old and broken thing from the back of your closet apart and try to mend it.
  30. Make some Onigiri and have a picnic.
  31. Take the things you bought last weekend back to the shops.
  32. Plant some daffodil bulbs in waste ground and then watch them come up in the spring.
  33. Make plum liquor (ume-shu)
  34. Help travellers.
  35. Make your own postcards and put them in the racks at your nearest museum or art gallery.
  36. Walk in the rain.
  37. Think about sex and sexuality.
  38. Join a cycling club.
  39. Tear some colourful pages out of your old magazines and make them into origami animals. Make some of the animals into a mobile.
  40. Sit on the train and make up stories about the people you see.
  41. Collect jokes and tell them.
  42. Cut a friend's hair, or plait it.
  43. Think of a script outline for a film, then borrow a camcorder and make it yourself.
  44. Learn how to do a cartwheel or stand on your head.
  45. Go to demolition site for an old house and ask for some of the still-good wood and fittings. Make some art from your finds.
  46. Meditate/pray.
  47. Create a dance routine with friends and then do it at the bus stop.
  48. Sit in the sun.
  49. Borrow a dog and take it for a walk.
  50. Learn a poem.
  51. Write a song.
  52. Organize a thumb-wrestling (yubizumo) tournament.
  53. Find out how to become a DJ at your local NGO run radio station (in Kyoto: radiocafe! on http://www.radiocafe.jp/) or a video producer at your local public access channel.
  54. Learn Japanese.
  55. Smile.
  56. Tell someone you love him or her.
  57. Practice tai chi in public.
  58. Exhibit all your unwanted goods and invite people to come and swap their useless things with yours.
  59. Help an old lady with the general household repair or tidy up her garden for her.
  60. Water your plants.
  61. Go to the park and find someone who you don't really like at first sight.
  62. Talk to the person and try to find something nice about her/him.
  63. Take a picture of yourself with that person.
  64. Wash all your unwanted clothes, iron them, and take them to your local recycle shop.
  65. Make your home an ad-free zone by sticking over or removing all brand names in sight.
  66. Borrow a book from the library - take an overdue one back.
  67. Read the/a book. (Recommended book; Naomi Klein's “No Logo")
  68. Feed the birds - tie a bag of peanuts under a tree.
  69. Tell a story to your loved ones (e.g. friends, family etc).
  70. Listen to the radio.
  71. Clean your windows.
  72. Say 'thank you' to your local garbage man/street sweeper.
  73. Make a mix CD for a friend from your existing music collection.
  74. Visit the friend with the CD.
  75. Sort your photos.
  76. Bring your milk cartons and Styrofoam trays to the supermarket.
  77. Make, not buy, a birthday card and a present for your partner or friend.
  78. Write to your grandmother.
  79. Polish every single shoe you can find in the house.
  80. Make someone tickle you.
  81. Do a big fall cleaning of your house.
  82. Breathe more than your fair share of the air.
  83. Pleasure yourself.
  84. Ask your friends to perform a piece of theatre for your amusement.
  85. Assume you are wrong.
  86. Make yourself happy.
  87. Stop smoking.
  88. Learn a magic trick.
  89. Stay in bed.
  90. Stay in bed with a friend.
  91. Knit yourself a big woolly hat and matching scarf to keep out those nasty winter chills, brrrrr.
  92. Write a haiku or Senryu poem on used/reusable paper and send it to the newspaper.
  93. Collect some bamboo and make candleholders/flower planters/vases/etc out of it.
  94. Paint BND info onto shopping bags and carry lots of them around empty.
  95. Put BND stickers on vending machines.
  96. Become a citizen journalist and write an article for indymedia. http://www.indymedia.org/
  97. Build (and fly!) a kite made of garbage bags and other scrap.
  98. Learn to juggle.
  99. Make a poster for BND and put it up all over your neighborhood.
  100. Call or visit the website of the company that you often buy products from to check how well they perform their social responsibilities.
  101. Volunteer to clip your neighbour's trees.
  102. Make wreaths from the clippings and give them away.
  103. Do a home stay with homeless people http://www.geocities.co.jp/wallstreet/9279/
  104. Remember the last 10 things you bought, and check where they are from and by which company they are produced.
  105. Cook something and invite your friends.
  106. Go to a public bath. Talk to a person next to you in the bath.
  107. Evaluate the last 10 things that you bought and evaluate their effectiveness (cost, enjoyment, etc).
  108. Discuss your last 10 purchases with a family member or friend - did they really bring you any happiness?
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