My Buy Nothing Year

Well we’re just about settled in to our new place and I don’t know that there’s anything left to get besides a couch, which is nice. We’ve been cooking a bunch which is nice because it curbs my desire to eat out, which is something I have a big problem with. It’s just so much easier to stop and get food than make it myself. I’m also doing better at keeping up with my dishes since I’m spending time in the living room and can see the mess instead of spending all my time in my bedroom and not being able to see it. 

Well I’m mostly moved into my new apartment, I just have a couple last things to grab before I’m done! We have our kitchen pretty well stocked up and just need to go grocery shopping. My room is done and I just have like one more load of clothes/shoes to bring in. 

I did end up having to buy a shower curtain rod and liner, because you can’t really just not have one of those and I didn’t want to make my roommate buy everything because of some weird life experiment I decided to do. So I guess I’ll have bought two things this year, but showering is pretty important. 

Well it’s been almost two months now! At this point it’s been pretty easy not to buy anything. I’ve been able to come up with solutions to problems or just live without things so far. I think the biggest challenge has honestly been loosing the little rubber thing that goes on your headphones. I lost the right one so I haven’t really been able to use the right headphone thing. Well I can use it, its just less comfortable because its just plastic in my ear and it doesn’t stay put if I move, but having slightly uncomfortable headphones is the biggest first world problem I’ve ever heard of so I’m not really going to complain about it. Besides that I haven’t truly needed to buy anything yet. 

Life has been pretty uneventful the last week or so. I haven’t had any real issues crop up or any exciting adventures in the land of getting things for free. One cool thing is that I think I’ve planted the idea of not buying anything in a few people’s heads. Like my dads. It would be really neat to know someone else who decides to take on the same challenge, so we can talk about our experience. I try to really encourage people to try not buying anything for whatever length of time suits them best. For a lot of my friends I’ve suggested a month. 

Grandparents are the best, at least mine are. After getting approved for the apartment I knew I’d have to take advantage of my grandmas offer to come take all their extra stuff out of their basement to stock my kitchen. So this weekend I drove up there and went “shopping”. 

I ended up getting everything I need for my kitchen except for a can opener. Seriously. I got pots and pans, dishes, glassware, cutlery, knives, rugs, cooking utensils, a toaster over, a waffle iron, a grill pan, and some other things I’m forgetting. 

Since I’m official moving into an apartment and will have to stock everything I need for that without buying anything I’ve been thinking about what I actually need. So far I think I really just need plates, bowls, eating utensils, cups, pots and pans, baking sheets, mixing bowls, measuring cups and spoons, and cooking utensils. Of that list, which I’m sure is horribly incomplete, I have cooking utensils. 

Well its been a month. and I haven’t bought anything. It’s been a lot easier than I expected. Turns out that by not looking at things its a lot easier not to buy them. I’ve also found that just decideding whether or not I’m going to do something really helps. In my writing class we talked about conviction and I’ve been thinking a lot about how I apply that to my life. 

What I’ve found is that once I decide I’m going to do something its not that hard to do, you just have to make a decision and stick with it. Which is often easier said than done. 

Not much has happened in regards to my not buying anything in the last couple days. Though I will say that I almost broke this afternoon and got some coffee while I was out and about before class. 

It’s funny because before I decided to severely limit what I could buy I wouldn't have thought twice about grabbing a latte while I was out, especially since there was a Starbucks on the way and they are my weakness. But now that I’m not allowing that its funny how often I want it. Every morning I have to stop myself from going to the coffee shop on campus. If I really want coffee I can make it myself, and its of course healthier not to drink massive quantities of caffeine each day anyways. I haven’t fallen asleep in class yet, so I can assume I don’t actually need a latte, I just want one. 

In the last week I’ve been gifted two things. One I needed adn asked for another was a surprise. Its been really cool to see how reaching out inot a community can often supply us with what we need. I have a horse and a slight addiction to saddle pads, sine they’re relatively cheap and come in many colors, and I like to buy things for my horse. The other day a rider at my barn had a couple of saddle pads that were the correct size for my horse she was getting rid of and gave them to me! So now I get two new saddle pads, one of which literally had the tags still on it, and an opportunity to pass the good will forwards, so I’ll be finding someone to pass on something I don’t need anymore onto.

I also got a new keyboard and mouse combo from my dad. I have a lot more typing to do now that I’m back in school and it just wasn’t comfortable to use the keyboard on my laptop for an extended period of time, so with my new keyboard I should be able to type without wreaking my hand and wrists! Its funny to think that a month ago I would have just ordered one online, but now that I can’t I have to be a little more inventive in acquiring things. On the same vein I kinda want a new desk chair, so I’ll have to keep an eye open for an opportunity to pick one up for free somewhere along with finding someone who would use my old one. 

Books are great! Love to read and there’s nothing better than cracking open a new book and settling down for whats sure to be a great read. I used to buy any book I thought I might want. Going to the book store was a big risk, I’d always leave with at least one book. Now I’m better than some in the regard that I read at least 90% of the books I buy, its rare that they just sit on my shelf unread. I do however have an issue getting rid of books, even ones I haven’t read in years, and I was always trying to add to my hoard. 

Well since I can’t buy books this year I’ve done the smarter thing and finally gotten a library card! I moved to a new county over a year ago and never so much as thought about going to the library, (why should I when I can just buy books?), well I’ve finally done the smart thing and went to my local library. It was pretty nice, sure every book I wanted to read wasn’t right there, but there’s nothing wrong with having to wait a bit, and I found some books I wanted to read that I hadn’t already considered. 

Well there finally came a time where I had to buy something for school. I had to get paper clips and one binder, the horror! 

Its interesting to think that I’ll be able to look back on this year and know exactly how many nonfood items I bought. I’ve never been able to do that before because so often I’d buy stuff without thinking about it and then forget about it. I’d give you an example but I, of course, can’t think of one. 

Its looking like I won’t need to get anything else this semester (fingers crossed) but next semester I’ll probably need new notebooks at the very least since I always fill mine. I used to have a bunch of half filled notebooks laying around, but I never used them so I got rid of them. Oh well. There’s probably another whole post about “just in case items” and what to do when you need them, so maybe that will happen later. 

Well it’s been just over a week and I haven’t boughten anything yet! Just food! So that’s been exciting. It’s interesting to really take note of how often I want to buy something. Before this year’s experiment I wasn’t exactly a shopaholic by any means, but I definitely bought more than I need without thought.

The last few days I’ve been unsubscribing from all the email lists I’m on to help keep me from looking at things I don’t need. One of my biggest faults is trawling through websites that sell things at a huge discount and talking myself into buying things because “it’s so much cheaper, and I might need it someday!” Of course if you’re not saving money if you buy something you wouldn’t/shouldn’t have boughten in the first place.

In addition to not buying anything this year I’ve also made a commitment to simplifying my life. I’m getting rid of all the clutter that does nothing but add stress to my life. I started with the biggest problem area. You guessed it, my closet. Like any young person I had way too much clothing. Like, an insane amount of clothing. Even after moving out of my parent’s house and donating a large quantity of clothing I never wore I still found myself with way too much. 

So, three garbage bags later I find myself with a little more room to breath. And a little more motivation to keep going. Even now there are a few items sitting in my closet I think I will donate or sell in the coming weeks. For whatever reason the hardest things to let go of so far are concert tees. I know I never wear them and won’t in the future, but I still find myself thinking “how will I remember the concert if I don’t keep the shirts?” Which is ridiculous. So I’ll have to let those go as well. I’m much more sentimental than I expected to be, but this is a great motivator to not get anything unnecessary to get attached to in the future. No more concert tees or hats for me. 

A lot of people wonder why I’m not buying anything for a year. And I suppose that’s fair. It is a rather strange thing, at least it is for me. I’ve never been in a situation where I couldn’t just buy what I wanted or needed. I’ll admit to many an impulsive buy either online or in person. After a while all this random stuff has piled up and caused way more stress than joy. So I decided to get rid of a lot of it and not add to it. What exactly is the point in having at least three pairs of headphones when one would do the job? Or two laptops, one of which I haven’t used in a year? Or three saddles for my one horse? Its quite frankly ridiculous. I don’t need everything I have. 

Its also incredibly wasteful. Most people, if asked, will say that they care about the environment, and they of course mean it, but most people won’t actually change their lifestyle to align with their beliefs. Which makes them unhappy because you can see everything wrong with what you’re doing but you just keep doing it because its convenient or the only way you know or whatever other excuse you come up with. We’ll I’m a bit sick of living in a way that doesn't align with what I believe to be true so I’m done with that. Buying cheap clothing made by people in sweatshops with materials grown in damaging ways is ruining our planet and causing horrifying human rights violations so I won’t support that industry. If you want to know more about how fast fashion is terrible watch “The True Cost” its on Netflix. It inspired me so maybe it can do the same for you. Will I be perfect? Of course not, no one is, but I’ll do my best.