One of my intentions for 2018 was to do no shopping. I am well over three months into the challenge, and here are some of my observations so far:
I felt liberated by the thought that I would not be bringing more stuff into my home this year.
I have not done any large-scale purging since starting the shopping ban: in part because I have been mindful of my consumption habits over the last couple of years and have not been accumulating useless stuff. (Completing three across-the-country moves on a low budget in the last four years definitely helped to inspire minimalism).
On the other hand, I did not want the no shopping experiment to take up all of my time. I know that I will not be shopping for a year, so I don’t have to worry about running out of space–I will slowly get rid of the stuff I don’t need and will not be acquiring more to replace it with for a while.
Slowing down allowed me to use stuff up instead of throwing it away.
I decided that I did not want to purge this year by simply throwing things away. This meant I needed to slow down in order to decide what items were in good condition and could be sold. I hope to sell as much as possible and put the funds I make into savings. I sell books at BMV Books and clothing in good condition at The Comeback.
The stuff that I could not sell, I had to use up before it could be replaced. It is easy to buy more of the low-cost items when you are experimenting with products. These products are cheap and easy to store away without creating too much clutter in your place. As the result, we end up with multiple deodorant sticks, moisturizers, stationary products, etc.
Committing to using all of the stock up before buying a new item showed me just how much of the product I have at home and how long it was going to last me. Not throwing this stuff away also allowed me to see just how much I must have spent by acquiring these items over the last couple of years.
I realized that I am not as mindful of a consumer as I like to think I am.
I stopped using and buying makeup several years ago, which has significantly decreased the number of beauty products I have at home. I committed to researching the best personal care products and getting them from boutique health food stores or online.
Nevertheless, I still managed to accumulate many sticks of natural deodorant, multiple bottles of essential oils and face oils, body butters, etc. All of this is premium quality, good-for-you stuff… but in the end, it is still just stuff and too much of it. Slowing down and noticing what I have at home before I buy more made me much more aware of my purchasing behaviour when it comes to these items.
I think about shopping a lot more than I would like to admit.
I am not someone who is compelled to shop simply by walking through a mall. Instead, I spend a lot of time agonizing about what my next purchase should be. A lot of this plotting happens online and, although most of it does not result in a purchase, I realized that I spend waste quite a bit of my time on this behaviour. Is this really what mindful shopping is about or is this just another bad habit inspired by consumerism?
Walking into a store makes me want to buy stuff even when I don’t need it.
In my early 20s, I quit alcohol for a year. I hung around parties and social events with a soda water instead of a glass of wine. I remember noticing how different awkward social situations made me want to take a sip: holding a glass and sipping from it gave me something to do with my hands much like checking my phone did. But sipping soda water that year instead of wine that made me tipsy, made me aware of this behaviour for the first time because my senses were not immediately dulled by alcohol.
Something very similar is happening with the shopping ban. I recently became aware of the issues with fast fashion. But, even when armed with that knowledge and the intention not to shop, walking into Zara at the end of long Toronto winter, makes me want to own everything in the store. The feeling is always somehow deeply connected to my identity: I must have this coat, because shouldn’t I realize my full potential this spring?
If such a feeling overwhelms me while I am on a shopping ban and deliberately educate myself about the pitfalls of the fashion industry and consumerism, imagine how it affects everyone else? Not giving in to the feeling by getting “tipsy” on making the actual purchases, allowed me to soberly pay attention to this behaviour.
I rely on my credit card too much.
I realized that I make a lot of purchases without budgeting for them ahead of time. I no longer ever wait to buy anything. As the result, depending on the size of the purchase, it sometimes takes me several months to get rid of the debt on my credit card. Ideally, I want to make it a habit to pay for things with the funds I allocate for them in advance. This means that I would have to learn to wait for an item I decide I absolutely need until I have enough funds allocated to buy it.
I look forward to what the rest of the year of no shopping will teach me. A few resources that helped me so far are:
- Cait Flanders wrote about her shopping ban on her blog and has recently published a book–A Year of Less— that describes her experience in detail.
- To get me thinking about the impacts of fast fashion on our purchasing habits and the plant, I read Overdressed by Elizabeth L. Kline.
