My No-Buy July: A Belated Write-Up

July, it seemed, was a good month for those of us trying to buy less stuff. Frugalwoods was running the Uber Frugal Month (I've signed up for this so many times that I've memorised the emails, yet I still don't invest, and I haven't yet trusted myself with a credit card. Maybe next year. Why do I feel like there's this whole arena of adulthood associated with these kinds of financial decisions that I somehow don't feel ready for yet?). I also discovered a YouTuber, Christina Mychas, who was running a No-Buy July support group by email, and also has a Facebook group, Low Buy Beauties.

In July, our annual trip to Pembrokeshire was so close that I could almost smell the sea, and we were also starting to get excited about our trip to Shetland in October. Dai booked the overnight ferry at the beginning of July, and I was starting to realise, with considerable discomfort, that a 'big' holiday (we originally booked it to fall between my 30th birthday and Dai's 40th, but had to push it back a year due to covid uncertainties) would be something we could do far more regularly if I stopped spending so much money on other things.

My finances weren't looking great following my trip to Brighton with Alice. I hadn't emptied my piggy bank, but as a carer I'm on a low income, and it takes a while for the coffers to refill. I wasn't intending to spend a lot on either holiday, but it did remind me that it was time to have a look at how I was doing with my budgets.

Well, it wasn't good. When I added up the columns of numbers in the back of my journal, I learned that, seven months into the year, I was already over the budgets I'd set myself for cosmetics, books, and clothes. Clothing was the worst category - I'd nearly spent twice my annual budget, which meant, terrifyingly, that in seven months I'd nearly spent the same amount I spent throughout the whole of 2021. Not. Good. At all.

It was time for a bit of triage. I was on the waiting list for a commission from a slow fashion artisan I'd been admiring online for some time, and I contacted her to say I couldn't afford the piece right now, and would it be all right for me to get in touch in a few more months and go back on the bottom of the waiting list then. She was amazingly nice about it, and actually said that when I get back in touch I won't have to wait again, which was so kind. I also had a tattoo appointment booked in early September for a new large design on my left arm, but I knew I couldn't justify another three-figure spend, so I contacted my tattooist and cancelled the appointment. I did not enjoy doing these things, but I also would not have enjoyed finishing up the year with no cash cushion left in my account. The modern wisdom is 'treat yo'self', but without limits my spending was spiralling out of my control. Better to wait until I could afford these things without risk of crippling myself financially.

I was also still plugging away with Flylady, and our small house was looking so much better. Partly because it was cleaner (!), but also because we didn't have so much stuff squeezed where it didn't really fit. But then, reading back through my journal, I was quite alarmed to discover that apparently I had also had a 'big declutter' back in February. By July, I couldn't see the difference or remember a single thing I had gotten rid of only a few months ago, which freaked me out a bit! I took a quick inventory of my wardrobe, and was interested to find that my 63 t-shirts (as inventoried in 2019) had been reduced to a much more storage-space-friendly 25, yet even when I wracked my brain I could only think of five or six I had given to friends or donated. Where did the other 30-odd come from, and where did they go?!

This experience really confirmed to me that I am still not quite the mindful shopper I had convinced myself I was. I could do with being a lot stricter on myself when it comes to spending, and I think I'm doing the right thing by trying to get the most out of the items that I have so I don't constantly feel like I have to be seeking something more. It's a bit worrisome that so many pieces are still kind of just passing through - I do shop mainly second-hand nowadays, and I get a lot given to me from friends' clearouts, but if I don't want to be decluttering eternally I need to be MUCH more ruthless about what I bring into the house.

I decided to follow Mint Notion's Shop Your Closet challenge throughout July. It would challenge my ingrained consumer mindset - I'd noticed that when I picture myself doing this or that in the future, I imagine a fantasy wardrobe for myself and start planning what to buy, rather than figuring out appropriate outfits from the abundance I have already!

Week One

An easy week, shopping-wise. No temptations, no slips, no mistakes. I noticed that my usage of Instagram and Pinterest fell dramatically throughout the course of the week, which made me wonder how much the 'inspiration' I'm seeking actually translates to 'the next thing to buy'. 

This was also the week I had the brainwave of rearranging my clothes instead of decluttering any further. My winter gear was put away in under bed storage, and I moved my socks and bras from a drawer in my wardrobe into a small crate that sits in the wardrobe itself. Then I had enough room to vanquish the last of those plastic crates that have been living scattered around our bedroom. It's a great feeling and the room feels and looks so much better.

(Actually there are still a couple of boxes on my side of the bedroom. Those are my 'maybe' boxes, where I'm keeping those last few pieces that I haven't decided whether or not to let go of. Traditional wisdom holds that you should seal your maybe boxes and put them away for a few months, after which time you can declutter them guilt-free, but after reminding myself that I'm an aspiring environmentalist, not an aspiring minimalist, first and foremost, I've left the boxes open so that I can mix my maybe items into my outfits. Some of those items will still have to go - they just don't fit and aren't comfortable. Others might have ended up in the boxes simply because I was desperate to get rid of something, anything, to edge closer to the mythical capsule wardrobe of my fantasy self, and they might deserve another chance.)

I watched a lot more YouTube than usual during this week - I found that it kept me feeling positive about the challenge to hear from others who were doing/are doing a no-buy - it reminded me that I'm doing this to have more money for other things; that I'm not making a sacrifice, just changing my priorities. (I've linked some of my favourite videos at the bottom of this post, as well as some articles that kept me fired up!)

Week Two

Now that things were tidy and manageable I found myself quite naturally focusing on things other than my wardrobe. I'd been enjoying the Shop Your Closet challenge as it has encouraged me to try new combinations and wear those items that didn't see the light of day as much, but I now found myself deviating from the suggested outfits as I had so many ideas for combinations I wanted to try. But after getting dressed in the mornings, I noticed that I wasn't really thinking at all about clothes.

Instead I was cooking more and making some of our household staples from scratch (armed with The Planet-Friendly Kitchen by Karen Edwards). It was too hot to go out or do anything very active, but I made some headway into my To Be Read pile. I made some cash selling a few of my unwanted things through Facebook Marketplace, and I started getting up early to beat the heat so that I could start again with my yoga practice - I have an annoying tendency to stick with it just long enough to notice my strength and flexibility increasing, then slack off long enough to stiffen up again. Much like I do with shopping bans, actually! But not this time, I hope.

What I do with my time when I'm not on a shopping ban baffles me. Surely I can't just be spending hours a day browsing? I thought I'd broken that habit. And yet I suddenly seemed to have a lot more opportunity to do the things I was always too busy for. Odd!

Week Three

I really wasn't sure if I wanted to admit to this on the internet, but I had a horrible moment where I found myself crying behind my sunglasses on a busy high street because I felt horrendously self-conscious and ugly in my summer clothes. In hindsight I think the book I'd been reading that weekend had been a bit triggering for those faint eating disordered thoughts that sometimes still crop up in the back of my brain, and I was feeling a bit vulnerable. I just couldn't think of how to help myself past these painful feelings without either shopping or dieting, but I knew that neither would be helpful, especially not as a knee-jerk response.

I did eventually decide that I probably needed a bit of indulgence and self-care time, a morning routine that wasn't a quick wash-and-go, maybe even a bit of lipstick and a pair of high heels. I've mentioned before that I keep trying to do without 'frivolous style and beauty stuff' in the name of, I dunno, dedicating myself to being a more serious eco warrior (or something like that), and it has helped to see that my favourite sustainability influencers clearly love clothes and make-up and generally looking nice. This overload of crappy feelings really brought home to me that I actually need to carve out that time in my morning routine to let myself feel good about myself. 

I'm wary of coming to depend on make-up to feel acceptable like I did when I was younger, so I'm going to try not to overdo it but instead to find a balance. 

Week Four

Speaking of balance, I know that I've already spent too much in my 'problem' categories this year, so going forward I really don't want to spend too much more in 2022. But this week I started to have some some wobbles about what my next steps are going to be. Realistically, I don't know if a year without shopping is ever going to be a thing for me, and sometimes I wonder if that's even a sensible thing to aim for - this blog post about choosing low-buy over no-buy came into my orbit this week, and the writer makes a good case. 

Although I feel like 'giving myself a gift' every week might be a bit excessive and would definitely push those big holidays further out of reach, I can certainly see that, say, a monthly treat like a new face mask or a book or whatever could actually be really uplifting. But when I tried a low-buy year before, it went horribly wrong! Maybe now that I'm not shopping online so much, I could do it? Being able to still shop somewhat would also mean I could do some thrifting, which I have been keen to do more since I started watching Gittemary's channel.

I have actually started planning another trip with Alice for a few months' time - we're going to take the train to London in January or February, and we're planning to visit the flagship Waterstones bookstore in Piccadilly and browse the shops in Soho, as well as a bit of sightseeing. There's approximately a 0% chance that I will come home empty-handed after noodling around Beyond Retro, and I'm trying to channel my inner Gittemary and not feel guilty as long as the shopping is sustainable and doesn't bust my budget. The thing is that I still kind of want to be this hardline frugal mindful simplicity guru who doesn't care about style, doesn't go nuts for new zero waste and vegan skin care products, doesn't adore clothes, doesn't enjoy shopping as an activity, doesn't like going to the spa - but I'm not that person and I do love all of those things. I feel like it undermines my anticonsumerist Druid credibility, but I can't change myself - I have tried!

I can't decide if my end goal is to quit shopping altogether (except replacement items and the things I need to live!) or just to give it less overall room in my life, an occasional enjoyable activity rather than a complete obsession. People who've done a no-buy year tend to rave about it as life-changing, and I kind of want some of that! But I also want to not always be punishing myself...

This post is getting super long, but at the very tail end of July I went with Dai and the Spud to Valhalla Viking Festival, which I'll talk a bit more about in another post for the sake of brevity. But suffice to say I completed my no-buy successfully despite delicious temptations abounding. It was helpful to remind myself that there will always be something else to want, and I won't actually miss or regret the items I don't buy.

Inspiration:

Quit Fast Fashion in Your Twenties (applicable for any age, and funny as well as lots of smart advice on how to generally shop better!)

I stopped buying clothes and found my personal style

Zero Waste Without Minimalism? 

Un-Fashioning the Future

How I Overcame My Shopping Addiction

Relapse or Realism?

At the beginning of March, I had a mini freak-out and totally muffed up my low-buy. I've been letting this news percolate for a while, so that I could try to work out how I feel about it. The initial spend, which started with lingerie and fancy chocs, could have been for hormonal reasons, I'm not one hundred per cent sure. I just felt a little glum, and frustrated that my self-imposed limits prohibited me from buying things like magazines and face masks without guilt. I'm twenty-nine, I found myself thinking, shouldn't I be able to buy a damn Fortean Times and a chocolate bar if I want to? (Not that chocolate was counted out under ban rules, but my new Sense of Frugal Duty made me feel bad for considering an UNNECESSARY purchase. It's entirely possible that I have some issues. Thanks for noticing.)

In case you're wondering, I'm super happy with all the items I bought, which had all been on my list of upcoming monthly purchases. I'm waiting for one more item to restock in my size, and then I intend buying that too, as I don't have a lot of summer-appropriate clothing. I didn't spend more than I could afford, either - hooray! (And after I bought the lingerie set, a wire came wriggling out of one of my last semi-decent-if-too-small bras, so I'm gonna go ahead and call that one a good buy.)

As much as I (mostly) enjoy having the structure of a low-buy challenge or shopping ban, and at first it seemed to be going really well, I'm starting to struggle now after nearly two years of self-imposed rules. The problems are firstly that it focuses the mind on all the things I'm NOT buying, and secondly this guilt developing around things that would be quite reasonable to purchase (like chocolate). I also have found myself thinking that more flexibility might be in order - I love the items I bought in Glastonbury in September - a patchwork jacket, tie dye dungarees and rainbow striped harem pants - and if I were to make a similar trip in future I would probably want to make purchases again, if something special caught my eye.

This last couple of years I've tried really hard to embrace anti-consumerism and simple living, but I keep tripping over my love of clothes, adornments and other little luxuries. This makes me feel quite disappointed, but it does seem to be in my nature. I can moderate it and choose not to make a purchase, but I can't seem to just stop being interested in my style, even when I feel convinced that it makes me shallow or silly.

I hope that now I've bought those things on my list I can make a clean break from browsing shopping sites, which is probably my most irritating and self-defeating habit. Going forward, I'm going to try to only buy things when necessary, because I'm happy with the amount of clothes that I have and don't want to keep piling on, and I'm going to prioritise physical shops (not chain stores or fast fashion! I mean small businesses, boutiques and charity shops) whenever possible. 

I know that I can indulge my enjoyment of dressing up without shopping for new things all the time, but persistently telling myself that I MUST NOT SHOP seems to be shooting myself in the foot a little. I'm tired of guilt and self-analysis and for feeling like a terrible person because I like sparkly nails and quirky jewellery and am not a combination of Swampy and a Buddhist monk. I had this kind of ideal eco version of me in my head for a while last year; I imagined myself barefoot and tan in worn jeans and a visibly mended T-shirt, no make-up, growing my own herbs and veg and keeping chickens. Not gonna lie, I still love that image - but that's all it is, an image. Real me would not like to part company with my blue hair extensions (they're clip-ins from Etsy), New Rock boots, and iridescent UFO earrings. Ideal eco me is great for sunny weekends in the garden, but it's the whole me, not just an idealised image, who has to go about in the world feeling good. Which is much easier when I'm embracing who I really am and what I really like. 

So my plan is, at least for a little while, to have no plan. I'm going to take a little bit of time to re-set. During that time I'm going to really embrace the things I have - read those books, play those CDs, wear those earrings, use those hair products! I try to do this anyway, but I'm going to try extra hard. I'm also going to refocus on the goals that I felt were most important when I first set out on the shopping ban - to be more present, especially with my son; to continue reducing my time online; and to take more time to be creative (other than writing blog posts, which has become my fallback spare time activity). I may also choose to read some books I've been eyeing up for a while that might remind me why it's important to reduce our consumption - books like Affluenza, Loved Clothes Last, Mend! and The Story of Stuff. 

Another train of thought I found myself boarding this month came about as I was reading a novel, The Dressmaker's Gift by Fiona Valpy. It's about three seamstresses working in a couture house during WWII, and it isn't at all the sort of thing I'd usually pick up (no ghosts, robots, or wizards), but it was lent to me and I found it fascinating. And it really reminded me that we have as a society completely changed how we treat our wardrobes - characters in the book used fabric scraps to create new gowns, treated everything with great care, even made wedding dresses out of parachute silk. Nowadays we buy a dress from Tesco, wear it twice and think nothing of discarding it!

I can't suddenly afford couture, but the book did remind me that caring about the way we present ourselves isn't just frivolous and doesn't just relate to 'fashion' as it's presented to us nowadays, a dizzying carousel of trends the advertisers want you to wear out your wallet keeping up with. But people used to spend a much higher proportion of their income on clothes, and treat them with great importance. (In Middle Egypt, fabric was literally currency.) Knowing how to mend, care for, even update your clothes would bestow pride, dignity, self-respect. We would have eked out their lives as long as possible. A new dress would have been exciting, important, savoured. 

Vintage clothing tells a story, whether it be a hand-stitched seam, a small repair, a scattering of beads added for a special occasion. The fact that clothing from one hundred years ago survives today in wearable condition tells us its quality, when I've had things from Topshop fall apart in my hands after barely a month. I now feel that I would like to focus more, when I do shop, on acquiring items that can tell stories. Either secondhand, vintage or made by individuals (this is why I like Etsy).  

Since I managed to purchase a few items without tipping back into overshopping and disaster, I'm hoping that I might now be able to go forward without specific rules, able to make an occasional thoughtful purchase without feeling like I'm letting the side down by failing to be the Queen of Frugality. I must admit, though, there's a part of me that feels like this is giving up, as though I'm giving myself carte blanche to go back to being a spendthrift. That's not my intention. I've just had enough of the feeling that I'm somehow cut off from the flow of normal life because I have to second-guess every purchase I think of making. Maybe I can get close to the present, focused, conscious, creative life that I want without imposing a total moratorium on new items?

Off the Wagon

Reviewing my holiday photos from the Isle of Wight, I noticed that my bikini was not providing me quite as much coverage up top as I needed - one thing on the beach, another thing entirely in the family pool at the leisure centre. So I allowed myself a ban waiver to purchase a swimsuit, with the proviso that it be ethically sourced (The True Cost still vivid in my mind's eye). 

I ordered a lovely pink and purple paisley swimsuit from vintage store Beyond Retro, and when it arrived I could not have been more happy with it. I think I appreciated it more because I bought it to fulfil a legitimate need, and because it was second-hand I didn't need to go through the exhausting, irritating faff of browsing and comparing 9,000 options. And although it was second-hand, I somehow felt it was more "me" than a generic piece from Primark or H&M. 

If only that had been my only ban break for August '19. 

Splurging

In hindsight, it's hard to pinpoint a single trigger. I remember that we went on our annual pilgrimage to beautiful Pembrokeshire, and the deep dismay I felt discovering that our cottage, once a place of retreat and renewal, now boasted Wi-Fi. I felt unable to ignore it, despite encouragement to do so from Dai and his dad, and found myself furtively checking emails before bed and scrolling through Pinterest in the bathroom. I was no longer present. I was checking out.

On our day trips to local beauty spots and seaside villages, my tendency towards comparison went into overdrive. I watched other women constantly, my chest aching with jealousy. I hated my clothes again. I felt old, frumpy, fat. I started sneaking off to the loo and browsing ASOS, Office, H&M, looking for the next fix, the "perfect" item that would pull together my magpie wardrobe. Deep down I knew that the only thing that needed pulling together was me. My compulsion to shop, my fixation on my appearance as all-important, soured my mood and cast a pall over time in an idyllic place with my son and fiance.

Returning home, I couldn't shake off those feelings. One afternoon, watching a makeover show on Netflix, I found myself almost in tears as the stylist encouraged her victims to express themselves creatively with their clothing, an outlet that no longer seemed to serve me.

One o'clock the following morning I started shopping. It began with an £8 dress in the Beyond Retro sale. 

Then an £18 Glossier lipstick. 

Then four pairs of jeans from Topshop.

And just like that, I was off the wagon. 

The next two weeks passed in a sickly blur. 

A package from Zara. A package from H&M.

Guilt, frustration, confusion, anger, disappointment. More guilt.

A package from Pull & Bear. A package from ASOS.

Pinterest, fashion blogs, perfect women, perfect lives.

Nights spent scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, scrolling. Trying to picture that item, this item, on me, in my life. Squelching concerns about waste, about ethics - I can't explain why it felt so urgent, so desperate, why I felt clothes had the power to fix whatever it was I felt I was sorely lacking. Trying to decode the bizarre photography on the Zara website (SERIOUSLY! I hate to ruin my own pathos here, but look at the bollocks they are trying to sell clothes with! You will die laughing). Days spent taking too-small jeans and too-bright dresses and camel toe jumpsuits back to the post office. I could feel myself becoming more irritable by the day, distracted, distressed by this apparent inability to dress myself.

Worse, I decided I needed to jettison some of these clothes I supposedly hated so much, and perhaps - hopefully - some of these stifling emotions along with them. Before I knew it my wardrobe was rattling with empty hangers. I had achieved the minimalist dream, the capsule wardrobe.

Sparking Joy

Despite three house moves over the course of the previous year, and what I thought was a fairly comprehensive clearout each time, I still had a pretty enormous wardrobe. I'd even applied the full Marie Kondo treatment, piling up all the items from each category and sorting through them all (it took me over a fortnight to clear the book pile). But because I had still been continually, mindlessly shopping, I could still barely move for clothes. 

After reading Cait Flanders's blog (many previous posts now deleted) and learning about her super-minimalist 28-item wardrobe, a desire for a Pinterest-friendly, effortlessly curated closet kicked into high gear, and I resolved to clear everything out of my wardrobe that was only so-so, and keep only the things I really loved. I read Anuschka Rees's blog top to bottom, put things into bags and towed them straight down to the Salvation Army clothing bank. Its metal jaws closed with a creak and a bang on a bizarre variety of things: an alarming amount of expensive shoes that hurt my feet, a T-shirt from a metal gig in Birmingham I spent the next eighteen months wishing I had back, miniskirts from Topshop that looked fine at 25 but suddenly mildly embarrassing at 27, bras that stood no chance of ever fitting again post-baby, approximately a thousand geeky slogan t-shirts that I abruptly deemed unflattering.

I expected the result to be an airy sense of weightlessness, an ease of getting dressed, a feeling of smug satisfaction. Instead I felt bored. My wardrobe may have been streamlined, all my choices now flattering, but I missed the sense of possibility. This probably sounds a bit nuts, but I missed the opportunity to be less-than-tasteful. For me, I discovered, getting dressed was about more than looking pretty. Some days, I loved a worn, oversized t-shirt and old jeans. I didn't always WANT to be stylish - or flattering. I missed a little chaos. My closet felt tired and colourless, and with a sinking heart, I realised that - once again - I had simply been wasteful. I wasn't Cait Flanders - when would I learn that I couldn't become myself by emulating other people?

My clearout did at least prove to me that, in shopping my way to a new persona via Pinterest, I had been buying the wrong things. Most of what I donated was two-a-penny; meaningless; pieces bought to fill a generic "this is what your wardrobe is missing" list - tailored black trousers, a classic beige trench coat in garbadine (never polyester; heaven forbid). But those things weren't me at all. 

One thing I was learning during the ban was how to tell what I actually liked - not what I thought I should wear, or what would improve me, or what I'd wear if I was a slightly different version of myself, or would have really loved five years ago. I must have read the advice to not buy anything you don't really love dozens and dozens of times, but it had never really sunk in - or else I was so overcome by the buying urge that "really love" was no longer objective. I could convince myself that I "really loved" pretty much anything, and come up with umpteen apparently sensible justifications for owning it, only to realise the truth of the matter once said item was hanging in the wardrobe emanating guilt and vague discomfort.

But now I really, genuinely had nothing to wear - and I couldn't shop. A dilemma, if ever there was one.

I was back where I had started. Stressed, anxious, and broke. I felt like I was treading water, gasping for breath. I was crippled with tension headaches and short-tempered with my son. I felt paralysed, unable to find and purchase the secret keys to my true self, the answer to the question that rattled around my head day and night: what kind of woman am I?

I had to take a breath. I had to find some air. I turned back to my journal, flipped through the pages, and remembered the sense of possibility and hope I had felt when I started to look at things through the lens of frugality and learn about sustainability. I had touched the edge of a new way of living, where how I might present myself was the least important thing about me. Where creativity and self-expression did not rely on what I chose to buy but who I chose to be. 

Slowly, I felt calmness returning. I pushed aside the endless questions and doubts about my appearance, the stream of comparisons and envy, and did my damnedest to focus on other things. 

 "When a woman says, 'I have nothing to wear!', what she really means is, 'There's nothing here for who I'm supposed to be today." - Caitlin Moran

January Accountability

So how have I been doing with my low-buy year so far? I've actually been finding it much easier - one "allowed" purchase this month seemed to function as a release valve, so that need to buy didn't feel so urgent. It also served to make me think really hard about that one purchase - I wanted something that would bring value for the whole month or even longer, and I didn't want to experience anticlimax or buyer's remorse.

I finished sorting through my clothes, as per my year of being myself, and although I donated a bag full to Re-Fashion, and a couple of bags of damaged and worn items were taken to the textile recycle bank, I still had a LOT of clothes and couldn't see that adding to the pile would bring me any real pleasure. Likewise, after Christmas and my birthday I was all set for books, cosmetics, and all my other usual 'go-to' categories for frivolous purchasing.

But there was one thing that came immediately to mind that I'd been contemplating for a while, and although it wasn't a necessary purchase in any sense, I felt strongly that it would bring me great value - I bought a year's subscription to my favourite magazine, Enchanted Living. 

What amazed me was that I then didn't feel tempted by other items! I could think of my subscription, look forward to it arriving, and I knew that it would give me more joy and entertainment than anything else on offer.

This month also marked a year since I last used Facebook! Amazingly, considering I once treated it as an essential part of modern life, I haven't missed it. Nor do I feel I've missed out on anything because of it. If anything, I feel my friendships have benefitted as I've actually had to take the time to message people - or even phone them - to stay in touch (under normal circumstances I'd say 'meet up', but COVID and lockdowns have been against me there). It's been a relief not to have Facebook - it's such a time eater, and for the one time you find something worthwhile in your first ten minutes of scrolling, there are dozens of occasions when the content is boring, annoying, infuriating or depressing. So no, I won't be going back.

It's also over 100 days since I last logged in to Instagram, AND I'm a couple of weeks clear of Pinterest and GoodReads as well. It's not that I think these platforms are bad in themselves, but they certainly don't do me any favours, and I wanted to have the chance to experience life without them and see if I found myself more present, calmer or more balanced, and so far that's a big fat yes on all counts.