My No Buy Year | Quitting Spending Money for a Year

in 2018 I listened to an audiobook that completely changed my life it was essentialism by Greg McEwen there are many books out there that encourage us to live with less but they suddenly never impacted me as much as Greg's book did rather than looking at how to live life with as little as possible Greg makes the reader a question what they're living with and why they're living with those things from information overload to late night shopping overworking a busy but not very productive productivity kind of Lifestyle Greg asked us as the readers to look at our lives and take control again by asking ourselves what is essential about my life by doing so the reader could identify how to re-engain control over their choices and consequently things like their money their thoughts their energy and their time so after finishing the book I went into full essentialism mode in 2019 at the very beginning in January I quit shopping for a whole year and for that whole year I didn't buy anything for myself I didn't buy a single coffee any alcohol clothes books decorations I did go on any holidays or any trips I didn't buy any hobby materials or plants or any takeout jewelry stationery tickets to events or even a snack or pastry at a cute little Bakery now yes the rules were tight but I stuck to them and the main rule was I just couldn't buy anything for myself the only things I could pay for were Essentials like groceries my rent my bills pet insurance and other pet Essentials I could however buy for others and I was allowed to buy a coffee when I was out socializing with a friend and one meal out a month but no more than one drink per social event and I could only socialize once a week at the maximum by the end of 2019 I saw as you can expect a significant Improvement in my savings and I was only earning minimum wage then as a freelancer holding myself back from buying anything for myself proved to be worthwhile to my bank account so after seeing the positive effects of a no by year I decided to continue that one year became three years and during that time I saved up enough money to fund the entirety of my PhD which I'm now taking even though I was still only on minimum wage now I stopped my no Buy in 2023 for numerous reasons and they were little things like I missed going to bookshops and going out on dates um having coffee and just sitting in a cafe by myself or going to charity shops and having a bit of a nosy brows also sometimes I was just craving a sweet treat from a bakery you know there are lots of delicious vegan goodies here in Edinburgh and I you know I wanted to try them very badly so I decided that after very strict three years I was allowed to treat myself again the trouble is that I forgot really that my circumstances had changed and the effects were financially be brutal to say the least when I did my first two years of no but I I had a living partner with whom I split everything 50 50 regarding household expenses but then in 2022 I left my full-time free Lance job to pursue YouTube full time but even then it wasn't truly full time because I need to do my PhD part time and YouTube accommodated my PhD work schedule much more but such drastic changes came at a massive cost as you could expect without a predictable monthly income even at minimum wage with fewer working days a week whilst dedicating time to a PhD the cost of living going up and no partner to share the financial burdens with such as you know Essentials my savings plummeted as I'm recording this in August of 2023 I'm down over 7 000 pounds meaning that I've lost nearly half of my savings in less than a year and even though I wasn't spending excessively I wasn't going on holidays I wasn't going out partying I wasn't buying a load of clothes and all that I knew that I needed to take action because clearly just minimal living um wasn't sustainable on my current level of income I could keep working harder and I will do but I still need to pull my purse strings a bit tighter uh to weather out the storm so I'm starting my know by year in September rather than the traditional January and I'm doing this for multiple reasons the first is very obvious uh necessity you know I have to respond quite quickly to my rapidly depleting savings that I've kind of buried my head in the sand over however if you're watching this and considering a no buy I'm here to explain to you why it actually may be the best time to start a no buy now rather than in January with the whole New Year resolution period so the main reason is that the holiday season is coming up and I know what you're thinking that's probably the worst time to start let me explain with back to school Halloween Thanksgiving Black Friday Christmas and New Year's coming up capitalism will be at full power companies will dial up their marketing to the maximum which is really the ultimate test you know it's incredibly hard to say no to all the flashy sales and shiny items being tossed onto your social media feed every what 10 seconds shopping gives us a hit of dopamine and that addictive sense of dopamine is pretty hard to break which is why so many people fail on their nobody during the New Year in the new year you are probably at your maximum boredom and you're completely miserable because you're strapped for cash and January is basically the worst month sorry January babies and going cold turkey with shopping can be very tough for people because that shopping wasn't very easy source of dopamine to get the them through that post-holiday Blues however starting no by in September eases you into weaning off shopping because you can still shop just not for yourself or no buy you can still buy gifts for other people so during these months you can continue to shop for others just not to yourself and you'll give yourself a four month trial period of shopping only for others and this is can be incredibly rewarding especially if you subscribe to the social importance of generosity and gift giving learning to spend your money on others and not yourself is a crucial part of the no buying process and it will make it so much easier for you to get used to not absent-mindedly shopping just for yourself because you're bored during these four months so what are my rules for no buy everyone has to have their own rules for no buy and you know the rules are pretty straightforward I can't buy anything for myself I can buy for other people of course I can buy the essentials as laid out kind of in Greg's book the principles of Essentials and centralism are paying my rent my bills my insurance things like that you know the very very Essentials so what does no buy actually really look like when you look at the microcosms of your life well for some people no by means buying no games for a whole year for others it might mean buying no clothes and hats or books or board games or even Netflix um yes when you go on no buy that means canceling all of your subscriptions for those of you interested in the minute details of my no buy here is a closer look at what I am not buying specifically because this is tailored to my life and what I tend to spend my money on yours will be different so the first one is the major one uh no books and this is simultaneously the easiest and the most difficult hurdle for me you know bookshops are my weakness as you can probably tell and when I'm there I like to you know support my local Indie shop by buying a book but you know I spend enough of my money on books over the years so another year without my patronage won't do them any harm and the ones who will benefit the most over the next year are those more in need my local libraries I love my libraries and I use two of the libraries in the city a lot but they're more academic libraries and at consequence I've neglected the smaller local ones so this year I'll be dedicated to those ones um the only exception to this rule may come in November and December which is my birthday month and Christmas month uh during which people will very likely gift me book tokens I'm allowed to spend those but I can't go over the book token limit I can spend the money that's on the token but I can't spend my own money off that token the next one is very obvious yes no clothes no plants no stationery or any other personal objects I mean the easiest way for me to put this is to say basically all material items are off limits my biggest weaknesses are plants and charity shop clothing artwork at craft fairs and stationery of course now I doubt I will run out of washi tape and sticky notes within the next 12 months so I should be absolutely fine for my University work and none of those items are necessary anyway they're just purely aesthetic additionally I don't need more than the 30 plants that I already own but I know that if I get the urge for some more I doubt it but if I do um I'll hone in that desire by improving my propagation techniques you know I've propagated a couple of my plants um but improving that skill would be quite a nice thing to do and be beneficial for gift giving especially next one is no hobby materials now I sometimes get very carried away with project ideas thanks ADHD resulting in me spending money in art and craft shops pens pencils paint brushes Lino printing materials ink and paint and fabric just the haunt every corner of my house that isn't already dominated by a stack of books so I'm focusing on using up what I have for the rest of the year and even if I become particularly proficient at one of those Hobbies so much so that I absolutely exhaust the amount of materials available my goal will then be to move on to the next stash of hobby materials I have and to work my way through to Ground Zero with all of them the next one is smaller socializing so okay thankfully I'm off the dating scene so because let's face it uh going on several days a week with strangers is expensive modern dating is taxing not only to the heart but the mind and the wallet so now those days are behind me I can focus on the relationships that I already have my friends and I are great at socializing on the on the lowdown you know none of us have been Partiers who go out drinking thank goodness we tend to just go get a coffee and sit for a few hours together somewhere however it will be on to try and do some more free activities with people such as going to an art gallery and sketching for a few hours together or hiking and having a picnic or going around to each other's houses more and just playing board games or meeting up on a Saturday to go to the local library and pick out a book together and go read them somewhere which I think will be so cute you don't have to spend a lot of money if any money really to have a memorable day with a friend so that's what I'm aiming at memorable I'm aiming to create memories without spending money the next one is no solo expenses naturally we all have to eat but eating drinking and snacking out by myself is off limits this means that unless I'm actively socializing with someone I can't buy food and drink that's outside of my weekly food shop so that means no coffees and no pastries no alcohol no takeaway Etc this also means no solo trips to the cinema theater or any kind of paid event or Workshop my next rule is no new cosmetic skincare perfume Etc so one of my rules that I've always followed throughout my know by years has been the following I can replace and fix items but I can't buy extra and this most notably applies to lipstick for me because that's my weakness if I see a shade I want I'll get it however all Cosmetics perfume nail varnish skincare uh everything like that are now a replace but don't add category so when I run out of something it can be replaced if I want to replace it but otherwise the aim is to keep everything down to the everyday items and use up the excess and get rid of it the final one is no subscriptions so the only subscription that I actually have is audible so I'm going to be canceling that I'm quite sure that I have enough audiobooks in my library to keep me going through the entire year but if I don't um the library will offer or do book services so I can use that instead now I'm lucky because I don't have Netflix or Hulu or Disney Plus or whatever people use nowadays so that's very easy for me but I think this will be the biggest hurdle for most of you out there canceling those subscriptions so the only subscriptions I'll keep are the ones I use for my business such as Adobe for video and audio editing my podcast hosting service my email and my website hosting Etc but nothing outside of that no fun kind of subscription as I've already said a no by year will look different for everyone as everyone will have different devices and they'll have different essential needs Etc you know some won't even consider not having to buy a book or makeup for a whole year because you don't wear makeup and you don't read books um still they may buy video games or subscribe to multiple streaming platforms there are many things that I don't do that I don't have to consider giving up on my no buy year that others will have to but the takeaway is that no buy is learning what is truly essential in your life it's not about punishing or depriving yourself of anything but it's learning to look at life and your money differently by learning to appreciate what you have from things like your local libraries to your galleries to parks and hobbies and talents that you've let slide in favor of binge watching Netflix all night the question is who are you without the latest Trend without the false nails the alcohol the streaming services the latest games the daily Amazon delivery well if you start no buying you're about to find out it's a tough challenge but I've really enjoyed the first three years I did it and I'm excited for my next year of doing it and I'm excited to hopefully get out of the hole that's what I'm mainly paying for but also to learn about myself you know it's been three years since I first started let's Truly find out what's essential to me today thank you so much for watching if you're interested please consider subscribing and liking the video if you have any requests for any videos I have a form a Google form that you can use in the description box to send them to me I also have bookish videos over on my patreon if you want to consider subscribing over there I'd be very grateful or on my main Channel I talk about history particularly dark history and ancient history so I hope you have a wonderful day and remember be happy and healthy and books save lives so keep reading

Channel: The Self-Help Shelf

Views: 373,125

Keywords: how to stop shopping, stop shopping, stop shopping for a year, shopping addiction, shopping rehab, i quit shopping for a year, no shopping for a year, not shopping for a year, shopping ban for a year, i stopped shopping for a year, what is a no buy, no shopping, shopping ban, quit shopping, how to quit shopping, shopping for first time, shopping, stop shopping challenge, shopping addict, how to stop shopping addiction, no shopping year, no buying clothes for a year

Id: 3Bawx_r24dg

Length: 14min 58sec (898 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 01 2023