I got a bag of tea from Buy Nothing. Not my flavors and I think I need to pass them on.
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I’m doing a No Buy Black Friday. I was looking at that thread, thinking WHAT DO I NEED TO BUY!?! And I realized…nothing. I don’t need to buy anything. It’s that frantic, looking for something to buy action that triggers overspending or needless spending for me. So I will be doing my best to resist the sale emails. If I’m intentional with my spending that will save me more in the long run than any specific sale will. (This is just my current life situation, of course not meant to shame anyone planning to buy on BF.)
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I think I’ll do the same this year. I have a little mantra for myself that “$0 is cheaper than a sale” - ie, not buying something at all is cheaper than getting it at a discount.
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Exactly! You get me.
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Hey hey I have talked myself into a 6-month clothing, stationery, and “beauty” no-buy starting on January 1. (those are pretty much the only things I buy other than food anyway). I’ve previously done no-buys for a year before, but only committing to 6 months this time, partially because we’re moving around June of next year, so it’ll be a good time to do an adjustment/reset.
I’m trying to reconcile the fact that I often fail to make myself buy stuff that I need - like replacement tights and socks when I have tons of holes, or moisturizers when I’ve run out, against the fact that I can go a bit wild when something is unique or fun.
Now, the only challenge is if I buy the activewear I’ve been contemplating for about a year when it’s on black Friday sale next week. I have it in the budget, and will get a lot of use out it, but I do not need it.
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There used to be “Buy Nothing Day” on black Friday - run by Adbusters - and I would celebrate every year, but I wasn’t in the target audience for it so it wasn’t a stretch. Now I am?
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To me, this is the key phrase and I would say goes along with the spirit of avoiding emotional or otherwise unplanned overspending on BF.
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Oh, but I contemplate clothing all the time for a long time. The average time things have been sitting on my “Things I want” spreadsheet right now is about 18 months.
ETA: I forgot I am getting paid to be in a skating event in like 10 days…Maybe I can allocate those funds mentally towards activewear (which is of course mostly for skating)
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Does the long contemplation period aid in sticking to a budget?
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Oh yea, it mostly exists to talk me out of buying things. I want a lot of things I don’t need. But then when things are on sale, it’s easier to say yes if it’s been on the list for a long time. Most clothing I buy new is from very expensive brands (wool, linen, indie brands, slow fashion) so it’s a big chunk of $$ when I do spend
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I don’t know if either of us is typical in this way, but when I put something on like a “future buy” list in my brain or Pinterest or whatever, I often forget about it, or it loses its initial luster. If I had something I was contemplating for over a year, it’d be a sign that I’m buying it for better reasons–not an impulse, not a manufactured sense of urgency, not an emotional response to something else in my life, etc. Just one noodle’s take!
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That’s definitely why the spreadsheet exists! I include emotions vs values in the spreadsheet, and also what it might be a reward for if I want to tie a non-essential purchase.
I’m not really an impulse spender, though, and rarely an emotional spender, so that isn’t the thing I need to fight against. It’s just about reducing how much stuff I get in my life and making sure the stuff I spend money on brings me joy and utility.
The thing for me is I don’t NEED this activewear. It’s not going to make me better at skating. It’s not actual equipment. I get most of my base layers for activewear from goodwill, and no one needs to spend $70 on a beautiful activewear dress lol. But will I wear it? Absolutely. Everything I bought from this brand has been a great investment and I wear weekly or more often.
ETA: went to do the numbers. I bought the onesie from this brand last year during the black Friday sale for $65.25. I have worn it 25 times since then (and those are only times I wore it long enough to mark it as worn, so maybe not for yoga, etc) so $2.61 per wear.
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Love this!!
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I think I’m going to really commit to only buying secondhand stuff. I’m still finding things that need to be replaced because of moving, but I think I can be patient at this point.
Exceptions - groceries, cat toys, things that need to be repaired. We’re going to need to replace the a/c.
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I used to celebrate Buy Nothing Day (and was a fan of Adbusters magazine). I got 5 minutes of fame in my college years because me and a friend organized a Buy Nothing Day event that got publicity.
I got a surprise phone call from some local morning radio show hosts who interviewed me live on the air. The phone call woke me up, so I wasn’t quite with it yet. I mostly remember that it felt like they made fun of me.
I also got a piece of hate mail, someone was mad that I would harm the economy and called me names.
We got kicked out of a shopping mall because holding up posters with anti-consumerism messages was not allowed.
But mostly we danced downtown around an artificial Christmas tree we decorated with homemade anti-consumerism ornaments.
Ah, memories…(This may sound like a list of unpleasant memories, but overall I think back fondly n this)
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I love this spreadsheet! I have a purchase pause spread in my bullet journal and maybe I will add some columns similar to yours! Thanks for the idea.
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I once broke my Buy Nothing Day because I bought a bus ticket to the shopping center to go to a Buy Nothing Day demonstration, at the time I didn’t really understand enough about black Friday to even understand why buying a bus ticket was still in the spirit of buy nothing day
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I’ve been giving a lot of thought to Hannah Louise Poston’s idea of the “automatic No.” When I think about buying something, I now tell myself No right away. For some reason that simple trick has caused me to close a lot of carts I was filling. Not all, but most.
I think I’m going to catalog the money I’ve spent each week here to see if I notice any patterns or areas where a targeted No Buy could help. Feeling more and more like I want to do this for 2024 but not sure about the parameters just yet.
Week of 11/12:
- Wool blanket layer for the bed. I’ve been researching this for a while, and we need it because Winter Is Coming. Bought new, high-quality, hope to have for life.
- Multipack of 4 pants for the baby from Old Navy. He’s at the point where 12M is getting a little tight but 18M stuff is dragging and he needs to be able to get traction with his feet lol. I could have looked around for used items or posted on Buy Nothing but we have run out of clean pants for him two weeks in a row (we already do a lot of laundry) and I wanted to cross this off the list.
- $5 stripey shirt at J Crew. I did not need this. But it was $5! But I did not need it.
- Trying to get one more pair of jeans I can wear to work. Returned two pairs from GAP, exchanged for a different size. It’s in the mail.
Not too bad.
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This is so interesting for me because I have the opposite reaction. If I keep telling myself no, then I eventually get fed up and go on a spree. Whereas letting myself shop and ponder and fill a cart and look for discounts scratches the itch and then I abandon my cart.
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using another hannah technique – the wish list – has really been helping me. when i see a pretty, i add it to my lil wishlist app (i’m using one called giftful) and then i revisit it every so often and weed stuff out. so far only 4 things have persisted!
oh i also have a wishlist on the pre-eminent multi chrome eyeshadow company’s website 
but shipping is all the way from canada and not cheap so i’m content to just let it build up for now.
i do think i could stand to do a no buy, but i’m scared i’ll fail and then feel like a jag.
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