I cannot get braver than this – putting it out there on the internet than I am planning a no-buy year in 2021. But honestly, there is no better way to do this than accountability from you!
You may remember I did a no-buy month sometime back – which wasn’t the most successful. But I thought I definitely need to up my resolution game this year. I have danced around the topic a little bit by talking about my zero waste wins, my tips on how to shop less, reducing my fast fashion consumption and so on but now its game time. I think this is a perfect year to try a no-buy year.
The Goal
Now let me be clear. I am not deluded enough to think I will make it the whole year without buying anything. What my goal is to make sure everything I buy is an absolute essential or at least required.
The Why
I am usually very careful with what I buy. Although my lockdown shopping is for another post, I did end up buying a lot of things last year and even earlier this year. Now most of them are definitely essential and things I needed but some were not. So this is something I wanted to work on.
The second reason is odd but totally true. Even when I did the no-buy month I realised this was the case. No-buy made things less stressful. There was no option to buy, no decision making involved, no conversation and discussion about what to buy, how to buy and so on. Take ti from me – its a bit of a relief. And I need all the ways to make this year as stress free as possible.
What I Am Not Allowed to Buy
Of course there are some rules I have set for myself. These are the things I will actually not buy:
- no clothes
- no shoes
- no accessories
- no makeup
- no homeware (to the extent this is under my control)
Now I compared this to what I was not allowed to buy for my no-buy month and realise I skipped toiletries and alcohol. Honestly, I will buy some face cream if I need to and like I mentioned on our latest podcast episode where we discussed Dry January, I am not ready to make that sacrifice this year, so alcohol if very much on the buy list.
What I Am Allowed to Buy
Again, this list is slightly different from the no-buy month list but thats due to the oddity of our lockdown life.
- dining out with friends (I am not giving this up when this actually becomes possible)
- groceries
- toiletries and skincare I run out of or need
- books (I will try and borrow and swap first).
My no-buy month list included coffee and office meals which I have removed from this years list. Honestly, I prefer the coffee at home and due to Covid no one is accepting reusable mugs so coffee drinking outside the home has just become too wasteful, both money-wise and environmental wise so I am happy to skip this.
Of course I am going to keep you guys updated. Make sure you follow me on Instagram – I will keep posting my updates there. Would you ever do a no-buy year? I am curious to know how many of you are horrified by the idea and how many of you would actually consider it!
– Anisha
I’m also attempting a no-spend year! It’s not going very well so far but it’s also better than normal!
Good luck, we’ve got this!
Saph x
http://www.simplysaph.co.uk
yay! I am definitely going to do a follow up post on how its going – hope you will give us an update too!
I think this is a great, I did a Spend Less Year – https://the-libra-life.com/2017/06/21/my-less-spend-year/
I decided only essential items however if I ran out of moisturiser then I would be allowed to purchase. No take-away food, however I still wanted a social life with friends so what I did was set myself a budget or £10 for that. I only really eat mains anyway and I only really drink tap water (unless it’s a special occasion – even then rarely). On the odd occasion with some groups of friends I did not stick to it but I was ok with that.
I really wanted to ban gift giving but this was a challenge and still is but I am trying to stand firm and have conversations with people to inform them I will not be doing gift giving.
Very nice