10 Things I Wish I DIDN’T Buy | Minimalism REGRETS

hey everyone and welcome back today i want to share with you some of the things that i wish that i hadn't bought and in the past we've talked about things that i've decluttered or things that i've stopped buying but in as much as i'd love to come here and say that every single purchase that i now make is completely intentional and i use everything that i've ever bought there are definitely some things that i've bought either since adopting a more minimalist lifestyle or before that that i definitely regret having purchased and i'm human we as humans make mistakes and so that's exactly what i want to dive into today i want to share some of the things that i wish that i hadn't purchased what i've learned from that experience and hopefully you can take away a little nugget or two so that hopefully you can avoid some of these purchasing mistakes as well so i have 10 purchasing mistakes that i want to share with you today if you haven't already be sure to hit that subscribe button below grab yourself a tea coffee or any other kind of cozy drink and let's get right into this all right let's start off with the first thing that i regret purchasing and that is high maintenance plants it's no secret that i absolutely love plants they bring me a lot of joy and i really have a lot of fun taking care of them watching them grow and thrive and i love how much life they can bring to a space especially living here in an apartment but when i was first getting into plants i didn't really understand the huge variance that can happen in terms of how much effort it requires to take care of certain plants i bought several that were extremely high maintenance like ferns and basil that had to be watered every single day or at least every other day and what i discovered is that while i really enjoy taking care of plants there is definitely a level at which they become a burden to take care of and i feel like it's an obligation rather than a joy to be you know spending time watering them each day so while i don't at all regret purchasing the vast majority of my plants there are a select few probably five or six that i do regret purchasing because i honestly ended up throwing money out of the window because not only were they not bringing me joy but they all died because i just couldn't take care of them in the way that they needed i love what plants bring to a space but i want kind of taking care of them to fit into my schedule and me not having to schedule my life around taking care of my plants okay moving on though to my second of buying regret and that is high heels and i know this is something that doesn't quite translate as well over a screen but i am quite short i'm about five foot three and so because of my shorter stature i was always kind of told by society that i needed to wear heels to appear more authoritative taller so that i'd be taken more seriously and so as a teenager and young adult i ended up buying a lot of pairs of heels but i was never actually able to walk in them confidently i was always tripping on them and kind of had a bit of a wobble in my step and on top of that i never found heels to be comfortable either they were always giving me blisters and making my feet sore and i finally got to this point of realization a few years ago that i am most confident when i'm the most comfortable and so me walking around in high heels wasn't doing anything to help me be taken more seriously or to come off as having more confidence because to be quite frank i wasn't confident in those heels and so for me this one was very much about kind of owning who i am yes i'm short but i'm confident in that and totally okay with it okay let's talk about number three now though and that is fitness trackers and right when the fitbit first came out i definitely got kind of engulfed in that craze i bought myself a fitbit and began religiously tracking my steps trying to get to 10 000 steps each day and i really bought into what i've kind of since learned as our culture's obsession really with trying to track absolutely everything 10 000 steps a day is really such an arbitrary number and it really is just a small glimpse of what overall healthy holistic fitness looks like and when i had that fitness tracker i was really only paying attention to that one small aspect of what fitness looks like sure i may have had a degree of endurance but i definitely had zero strength and it wasn't until i was finally able to let go of my fitbit that i was able to really adopt a far more intentional and healthy mindset and approach when it came to my personal fitness moving on now though let's talk about number four and that is buying excess food and this kind of happened for a variety of reasons whether i was going grocery shopping on an empty stomach i was not using a list when doing our shopping or even i was making a lot of impulse purchases and paying a bit too much attention to the food displayed at the end of the aisle and things like that and this is one that i regret for so many reasons not only was it a terrible use of the earth's resources but i was also literally throwing money out the window because the food we had would inevitably go bad because i had bought too much of it and this one really just comes back to be more responsible and intentional and kind of planning before doing but it really was a big one that i learned and definitely among my regrets next let's talk about number five and that is sheer or finicky clothing and for years i would buy clothes that were sheer or kind of a finicky material or that had straps that always needed to be adjusted or just generally clothing that i had to monitor a lot more and i would buy these things for myself saying oh i'll wear it i'll kind of deal with the extra effort that's involved in wearing this piece but then reality would set in and the truth is even though i didn't necessarily recognize it at the time i tend to prioritize comfort first when it comes to what i wear and so because these clothes always required extra precautions being taken i would never end up wearing them and they would simply sit in my closet collecting dust maybe being worn once or twice a year and so now that's something that i really look out for when it comes to buying clothes is is it comfortable is it low maintenance is it something that i can wear without having to constantly worry about it those are the pieces i know that i'm going to get the most use out of in my closet and so finicky pieces really just don't have a place in my wardrobe anymore all right let's talk about number six next though and that is souvenirs and confession time i used to be all about some tacky souvenirs whether that was the tinker bell t-shirt that i owned the shell wall hanging thing that i got at the beach once and i could go on but i won't hopefully you get the picture but at the end of the day souvenirs really do tend to be pretty generic and you can find pretty much the same t-shirt with just a different name or location on it from wherever you happen to have visited and so while i love to travel and it really is one of my greatest passions in life what i've really discovered over the years is that really aren't the best way of commemorating a trip that you took the best way of preserving those moments is in the memories you make and being fully present in the moment not searching for a souvenir and the pictures that you take that you can see the people who you were with and it really is just a far more vivid spark of being able to look back fondly at a specific trip you took than any kind of souvenir or knick-knack or t-shirt ever is going to be okay let's talk about number seven and that is blue light blocking glasses and when these first came out i was really excited about them because a big part of my job involves staring at screens every single day so i thought the idea of them sounded fantastic and the website listed out a whole series of benefits of blue light blocking glasses but when my pair came in the mail i never really noticed that they particularly did anything for my eyes and so at first i thought maybe i just had a faulty pair or something but as i began looking into it i found a report by the american study of optimology the people who literally study our vision that found that it is not necessary to spend money on special eyewear for computer use and that was kind of the conclusion of what their study found but essentially what the report shared was the fact that the symptoms that we tend to experience aren't actually the result directly of blue light we actually get blue light from the sun as well but the fact that we spend too much time staring at our computers and so it's actually the length of time that we spend staring at screens not the specific light that's coming from the screen that's causing the problem and so what they kind of concluded the study recommending was to about every 20 minutes or so after staring at a screen to look at something else refocus your vision on something about 20 feet away and then that could help with a lot of the kind of eye strain and kind of soreness that people would experience that they would buy blue light glasses kind of thinking it would help and when i started doing that that was when i finally started experiencing a lot of benefits that the blue light blocking glasses kind of claimed to help with um it was literally just stopping staring at a screen that was what helped me okay let's talk about number eight and that is sale items and there have been so many items in my life where i have fallen into the trap of oh but it's on sale or oh but it's cheap and i think that buying things because they're on sale is a pitfall that honestly a lot of us fall into we inherently love the idea of getting a bargain and it makes us feel like we're being really responsible with our money and while there's nothing wrong with buying something that's on sale if it's good quality and you're actually going to use it i think a lot of us tend to use the fact that something is on sale or that it's really inexpensive as a means to justify it what is otherwise an unnecessary or maybe unwise purchase and so something that i've learned over the years is sometimes there's a reason why that item is so cheap and i really can pay to invest in quality you can often really lower your price per use by simply buying something that's going to last longer and is going to work better than the cheaper alternative bouncing off that one though let's talk about number nine and that is fast fashion and when i was younger i was definitely that person who got a lot of poorly made cheap clothing that would realistically fall apart after only a few uses but at the time i bought it feeling like i needed to wear a specific trend or specific item to feel like i fit in and that somehow what i wore would make me more cool or more likeable or something like that and it wasn't really until i began to kind of grow into my own skin and to mature as a person and really discover my personal values that i began to understand that number one the clothing that i wear has absolutely no impact on who i am as a person and that i didn't need to dress a certain way or wear a specific brand to really be i guess accepted or liked and that people actually like you for your personality and if they don't then maybe they aren't the type of people you want to be friends with so it was that realization that you know it has no impact on who i actually am as a person but then even more than that as i kind of began to understand my values i realized that sustainability and things being produced in an ethical way is really important to me and that a lot of those fast fashion brands that i was wearing didn't necessarily coincide or they didn't align with my values either so this one has definitely been a journey for me but there are so many fast fashion clothing items that i purchased that i wish i could now take back and finally let's end this one off with number 10 and that is unnecessary tech gadgets and a really specific example of this one for me was that when i was getting into photography and youtube and everything like that i bought several lenses which were very specific and could only really be used in a handful of situations when in reality the lens that i needed to purchase and postponed for a long time was one high quality and really versatile lens and for the longest time i kind of put off purchasing that lens thinking that it was too big of an investment to make but what ended up happening unfortunately is that i ended up buying several lenses that didn't quite do the job that ended up adding up to just about the same amount as that one lens that i actually needed so with my lenses when i realized this i finally invested in one high quality lens that did the job of all the others and then some but honestly i made this category a lot more specific than just camera lenses because i've also made this mistake when it came to things like external hard drives for my computer and having some that literally broke on me so i needed to get a higher quality one with a warranty and i could go on listing them but essentially i guess the takeaway from this one for me is just to really research what my needs are and not to spend money frivolously but to figure out what i need and then to invest in whatever it is that is best going to suit that need instead of opting for lower quality too specific and less versatile or just cheaper versions that don't really fit the needs that i have all right well those are some of the items that i wish that i hadn't bought but like i shared at the beginning we are all human and hopefully you understood through this video that i definitely make mistakes in as much as the next person but hopefully today you're able to learn from some of mine so that you can avoid repeating them yourself i hope you guys enjoyed this video though and if you did and you haven't already be sure to hit that subscribe button below for more simple and intentional living videos coming at you twice a week also be sure to follow me on instagram i am at ashlandtition on there for more inspiration and updates all right well that is everything i have for you guys today thank you all so so much for watching i love you all so much and i will see you in the next one bye

Channel: Ashlynne Eaton

Views: 91,724

Rating: 4.9270201 out of 5

Keywords: things i dont buy, what i stopped buying, how to be a minimalist, money saving hacks, money saving tips, things i do not buy, things i dont own, things minimalists dont buy, things i dont buy anymore, dont buy, simplify your life, saving money, minimalist, minimalism, simple living, slow living, declutter, decluttering, ashlynne eaton, charlotte nc

Id: 6qjxDKDWfzI

Length: 14min 40sec (880 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 29 2020