Right after things opened up after the pandemic, so many of us got caught up in the cycle of consumerism. Spending habits skyrocketed as there were more and more social opportunities to spend money. With inflation being at its highest at the moment, a no-buy year could be a great way to save money to recover from all the overspending of 2021. A no-buy year for 2023can be the answer to having a safety net for the upcoming recession.
A No-Buy year is about choosing to use only what you currently have and refrain from making any purchases for the full year. You only spend money on basic requirements like food and essentials for personal hygiene.
There is no right time to start a no-buy year. It doesn’t have to start on January 1st! your no-buy year can start as soon as tomorrow. However, it is very important to have some ground rules and a clear guideline before you get started to ensure you will actually stick to your goal.
My Experience with a No-Buy Year
I did my no-buy year during 2020 (months before the covid-19 pandemic started). I started it in January 2020 as a new year resolution. The fact that it turned out to be the year of the pandemic was just fortunate for my goal. Being at home made it a lot easier to stick to my no-buy rules. Even though I am not doing a no-buy year now, I am still following a lot of the rules that I started in 2020.
This experience of a no-buy year isn’t going to be something that you do for a year. You will carry on the financial learnings from this year for the rest of your life. More than money-saving, learnings about your spending habits and your self-control capabilities will be invaluable.
My experience with a no-buy year was extremely positive. I still carry habits that I developed during the no-buy year. It has played a key role in having the financial safety net that I have today.
To know more details about my personal experience along with the specific money numbers, click here. The details and specificity of the content made this post way too long.
Not Money-Related Reasons to do a No-Buy Year
1) No more worries and anxiety related to maintaining the stuff you own
It’s just so hard to get caught up in the cycle of buying and buying more stuff. One shopping trip leads to two more errand trips leading to more shopping.
Before you know it, the real priorities (Health, Family, Friends, etc) are left aside and you are drowning in STUFF.
Have you ever felt that a lot of your anxieties, worries, and restlessness comes from maintaining all this stuff you own? Like, keeping all the stuff you own organized and cluttered?
When you aren’t constantly adding stuff to your household, you will realize how much easier it gets to maintain your organization systems.
2) No more Guilt
Many a time, you aren’t even aware of all the things you own. I am sure you find pieces of clothing that you completely forgot you owned. This leads to a lot of guilt.
The only solution most people find is hiding away all the stuff you never use OR donating the stuff to get it out of your site.
A no-buy year will be the solution to this problem. When you aren’t buying more things, you will come up with more ways to use the things you already own.
3) Be More Outspoken
When you aren’t spending money, it gets much harder to be social. Your commitment to sticking to your goal will force you to suggest hang-out ideas that don’t require you to spend money.
You may even find your relationships slightly changing with other people. You will realize which friends and family members really respect the choices you value.
NOTE: If you don’t want this goal to affect your social life, mold your no-buy year rules to reflect that. I will expand later upon how to practically put this into effect.
If you need even more inspiration before starting the challenge, click here to look at some other people who successfully completed a No-Buy year, what kept them going, and what they learned.
How Long Should you do the Challenge For?
Many people say it might be easier to start with a week, then a month, and then go for the entire year. Slow progression doesn’t personally work for me. Going cold turkey is a lot more efficient for me.
In my opinion, a week or a month is not a good representation of a year-long spending cleanse. It is much easier to put off a purchase for a week or a month. You won’t get to know your self-control well within this small duration. I say just take the leap of faith and go for the entire year.
How to Actually do it
1) Know why You Are Doing It
Any goals that aren’t driven by a motivating factor are very easily abandoned. It’s really important to clearly verbalize why you are pursuing this goal and what you intend to get out of it. You may have any one or more of the many reasons for pursuing a no-buy year:
- Detox from the Consumerism Cycle and horrible spending habits
- Develop Better Spending Habits
- Save Money for Something Big (i.e. House, Car, Furniture, etc…)
You need to not only pick a reason but actually write it down on a piece of paper. Somewhere you can look back to each time you find yourself wanting to give up.
2) Clear and Concise Rules
The key to a successful no-buy year is having a list of crystal clear rules that will be the main source of guidance for you throughout the year.
You must compose this list of rules BEFORE you start the No-Buy Year. Coming up with this list will be easy if you have completed step one in its entirety.
Having a motivating factor for your pursuit of a no-buy year completed makes forming the rules a piece of cake as each rule will trace back to a motivating factor. (The Engineer in me is absolutely ecstatic about this trace chart. As I’m writing, I’m thinking we need a visual representation of this trace. Ideas forming…But for now, let’s get back on topic).
There will be 2 categories into which all of your rules will be categorized in. Depending on your goals, you may have one or more rules in each category. So, let’s go over the categories first, then we can go over the rules I had for myself for the No-Buy Year.
Category 1: The Buy List
The easiest way to do a no-buy year is to have a “What you are allowed to buy” list, and obviously, everything outside of this list is your No-Buy items.
Generally, this list would be the list of what you consider to be the essentials in your life. The definition of what is essential can look different from person to person.
You have to really be honest and strict about what you consider to be essential. Because if you really want to, I’m sure you will be able to justify many purchases as ‘Essential’, but truly, they aren’t really essentials.
Your job is to come up with justifications to NOT put items on your “Buy” list, not the other way around.
Some examples of common things that are considered essential for the “Buy” list are:
- Groceries
- Hygiene items
- Replacement Makeup and Skin Care: Both makeup and skin Care should be replacement only. i.e if you have 2-3 foundations, you DO NOT buy a foundation until you completely finish those foundation bottles. When you run out of an item from your skincare routine, you replace it. No adding new items to your routine.
- Replacement of Essential Clothing: This is reserved for legit bare essentials such as undergarments that absolutely need replacement. There are very few people, who don’t have clothes to last a year without buying new items. You most likely fall in that category as well. So, NO, you shouldn’t be buying any clothes during the No-Buy year.
The remaining list
- Gifts: It’s not a great idea to let your relationships suffer because of a No-Buy year. I have the perfect solution to this problem. Ideally, you’d be vocal about a goal like a “No-Buy Year” to your loved ones. So, you can ask them to only get you essentials as a gift for that year, so you can use the money budgeted for your essentials for gifts for your loved ones.
- Eating out: A no-buy year doesn’t have to mean deprecating yourself of all joys of life. We all love food. And some space can definitely be made in the budget for eating out. If you already don’t eat out much, you can just put no cap on eating out. If the “eating out” category is a big chunk of where your money goes, you can limit it to once or twice a week.
- Vacation/Travel: This rule may look very different depending on what the reason for your no-buy year is. If it’s because you want to aggressively save money, vacation/travel may be on your “No-buy” list. If your goal is to be better with your spending habits, vacation/travel would be on your “low-buy” list. Meaning, you may have a very tight budget for travel, thus you have to come up with creative ideas for low-budget travel.
Category 2: Exceptions to the Rules
This category of rules can look drastically different from person to person, but the gist of it is that you may want to have some exceptions to the rules. For example, you might be able to stick to the 1-2 times eating out rule when you are at home but might need to make an exception if you are out of town or on vacation.
Exceptions can not be vague. The exception rules must also be very clear. If there is an exception, attach a budget number to it, so the exceptions don’t get out of hand.
The simpler and clearer the rules are the easier your No-Buy year will be.
The exceptions are really meant for times when it is not possible for you to stick to the rules. The exceptions are not for days when you are feeling down. Exceptions are not meant for you to spend money on things you shouldn’t be in the name of self-care.
3) Remove Temptations
Now that you have your rules down, you need to create your defenses to ensure you actually stick to the rules.
You will have to do some work to find out what your triggers for reckless spending are. Basically, you go through your statement summary for the previous year and look at the spending categories in your ‘No-Buy list’ (clothing, makeup items, decor items, and any other frivolous spending).
Now, think back to what really leads you to spend money on those categories: Ads on social media platforms? Social media influencers you watch? The “Sale alert” emails from the stores? Influences from friends and family?
Once you have your triggers figured out, you need to ensure you don’t put yourself in the situation in the first place in which your frivolous spending habits are triggered. You need to remove these temptations altogether:
- Unsubscribe from any and all emails from retail stores
- Unsubscribe/unfollow any social media influencers whose content focuses on consumeristic lifestyle
- Install an ad blocker
- Don’t have your credit card info saved on your computer (i.e. remove easy access to money for online shopping)
NOTE: During my research, It seems that even embracing your temptations can also work for some people. For example, if you spend a lot of money online shopping, you can browse all the sites, add items to your card, and apply all the discounts, but not actually buy those items.
It seems that the sales hunt process is the actual fun for some people, not necessarily the actual items. Doing this can also curve the cravings for online shopping. Personally, I know this is not something that would help me stick to my goal, but it might work for you during the difficult temptation days. I would suggest you do your own research on this as well 🙂
Big No-Nos
To make your No-Buy year a successful one, there are some things that should absolutely not be allowed and should be marked as gigantic NO IN RED on your rules list.
- Clothing (In 2023, most people have more than enough clothing to last them a year. Make it a challenge to not buy a single piece of clothing during your challenge. What about a special outfit for an occasion you ask? Borrow it. Ask your friends, your parents, your grandparents, whoever. Make use of something vintage. No matter what you do, DO NOT buy another piece of clothing. You DO NOT need it.
- Big Purchases: The goal of this year is to avoid big purchases at all costs. If you don’t have that big item now and you are doing fine without it, you will be fine without it for a year. This year is about practicing patience and self-control. It is obviously okay to replace a big item that’s a necessity and part of your daily routine (i.e. laptop, fridge, microwave, laundry machine, etc). Basically, distinguish the needs and wants when it comes to big purchases during this year.
- Home Decor: Home decor is just that: decor, thus cosmetic, and thus not a necessity. During this year, try some DIY decor with items you already own, re-arrange the decor items you already own or borrow some decor if you really need a change. DO NOT buy any new decor items.
Things that are Maybes
- Entertainment: Over-the-top spending money on entertainment during No-Buy year should absolutely not be allowed. During this year, put yourself out there and find ways to find free entertainment, borrow from friends or excessively use your library resources. You can allow yourself to have any one streaming service subscription; find a friend to split this cost with as well. Entertainment that isn’t free should be one of your last priorities.
Summary
I don’t want this process to feel daunting or unachievable. The process was incredibly uplifting for me. Just knowing the amount of self-control I had gave me a lot of self-confidence and belief in myself. The gamification of saving money during this process was incredibly motivating and joyful.
Follow the below rules in that order, be honest with yourself, and you are ready to embark upon your No-Buy year:
- Know why you are pursuing the No-Buy Year
- Come up with your list of rules for the No-Buy Year
- Remove all temptations
If you have any questions about any directions mentioned here or about my personal experience with the No-Buy year pursuit, leave a comment below or email me at [email protected].