In 2022 I did a No Buy Year. It was truly a challenge and gave me a lot of perspective. Today, I’d like to share some of the notes I took throughout the year and reveal if I completed the challenge successfully.
Before any confusion arises, I’d like to explain what my guidelines were. Of course, I still had to pay my rent and buy groceries. Apart from those essentials, I still allowed myself to buy others gifts, repair items and pay for transit. Off limits were any new “things”. Clothes, gadgets, souvenirs, trinkets, kitchen appliances, books, stationary… you name it. I wanted to drastically cut my shopping and save money.
So, how did it go?
For the first half of the year, I didn’t struggle as much. Things went smoothly and the only thing I bought that wasn’t considered a necessity was some protein powder to supplement my smoothies. I spent some time pondering if that broke my No Buy Year, but concluded that it was okay since it was a consumable.
Check-in from July 17th 2022:
“I’d like to buy clothes but I don’t really need them. I think it’ll bring me more contentment to stick to this challenge and be successful than to have more clothes.”
As you can tell, completing this challenge was a priority to me – I think if someone commits to something fully, they are so powerful.
In October I moved, which led me to buy a couple of things for the new place. I was struggling to justify them to myself but retrospectively think that it didn’t break the challenge. I bought a carpet to go under my desk chair; a floor protector would’ve actually been the same price. Light installments were a necessity; the only non essential piece I bought was a shoe rack for 15 bucks. For the rest of the year I stuck with buying nothing.
A short summary of nonessentials I bought:
- 15$ shoe rack
- 10 $ protein powder
I’m pretty happy with those numbers. Yes, technically I did buy nonessentials but I think it’s still a great achievement. I can only recommend you to try this challenge. It helped me find joy in what I already have and appreciate everything more. Repairing items is much more fun than throwing them away.