How to Buy Nothing
 

I think being frugal is good. Some of you might find this article interesting:

Quote:

Ownership can be a burden. Once you buy something, you have to carry it around, fix it, remember where you put it, and keep it clean. Experiment with the freedom of buying nothing and embrace Henry David Thoreau's sentiment that "he who owns little is little owned." Steps: 1. Practice reverse snobbery. Express contempt for people who mindlessly buy things. This has two benefits: It raises the act of not buying things to a lofty moral height, from which you can denigrate others, and you get to enjoy the irony of simultaneously being a snob while making fun of other snobs. 2. Go to shopping malls and department stores and briefly let your materialistic impulses loose. Try on a bunch of sweaters and choose three or four. Add a few ties or scarves. Walk around for a few minutes enjoying your stack of loot. Then put it back on the shelf and walk out. Think about how unnecessary that stuff is. You probably already have something just like it. What a relief to not have more junk around the house. 3. Get satisfaction from money saved, not money spent. Set up direct deposit so that 10 percent or more of your paycheck goes automatically into a savings or investment account or buys United States savings bonds. 4. Become a scrounger. Old bicycles, furniture, building materials, vehicles, books and clothing are everywhere, once you start looking. Become skilled at resurrecting old stuff and finding uses for it. Take pride in being an eccentric recycler. 5. Look for barter opportunities. Swap your homegrown vegetables for repairs on your house, for example. Some cities have local barter networks where credits can be earned and exchanged for needed services. Because no money is exchanged when you barter, you avoid paying taxes, which can mean a substantial savings. 6. Consider having a "buy nothing Christmas" this year. You can find details at BuyNothingChristmas.org. Overall Tips: Studies have shown that most children want more time from their parents, not more toys. Buy Nothing Day is usually held on the day after Thanksgiving in the US and on a late November Saturday in the UK and other countries.

I've kind of been living this way.
It's like the saying goes, "Money is the root of all evil".

i thought that was "the love of money..." instead
but yeah, i don't buy much either. except on buy nothing day, when i seriously consider doing so.

Buy nothing day is the day after Thanksgiving? But that's when all the good sales take place!

I was pretty well brought up living this way. While I'm not so hardcore as that, I definitely tend to obsessively save money (to the point of it sometimes being bad how little money I'm willing to spend), and I almost get competitive with how little I can spend at, say, the grocery store.

At the same time though, some things are worth spending the money on--a good, well made tool or clothing item though, something that you will use often and that would benefit you to be well made, not just cheap. Or, travel. It's worth it to me to spend some money to be able to see the world.

Sounds like the manifesto from the 'good life', the trick is buying what you need - not what you want and of course realising you don't need to buy stuff to feel happy. Since it is the job of thousands of people working for thousands of marketing agencies to convince you otherwise, don't feel bad for the occassional digression

Exactly HOW does not buying something raise your moral worth? I've seen this concept thrown around quite a few times (Buy nothing day! Stick it to the man!), but I never quite understood it...

Perhaps you want to go with the whole "delayed gratification" thing and spend your money on other things which are perhaps more worthwhile (like a nice holiday). That's fine. We all do that to a greater or lesser extent at times, it's called 'saving'. But I don't see how this is a "moral" action, that grants you "condescension rights".

If you want to gain "moral credits" for your buy nothing actions, you can take the money saved and give it to a worthwhile charity.

I find shopping quite stressful. I can not think of anything so pointless and frustrating as to go through the whole rigmarole of it and not have anything to show for it at the end of it all. Reminds me of this joke.

As for the bartar suggestions - again, not getting it. What is the difference between you going to the office, working for a number of hours, receiving payment for that work, and using that to pay for your roof repairs, versus going out into the garden, working for a few hours and using the produce to pay for your roof repairs. They are both fundamentally the same, the only difference being that in the former case your hours of labor are converted into a more liquid intermediary form (money). Also, I would be willing to bet that you earn a hell of a lot more "buying power" per hour with your time in the office than you do with your time in the garden, so the claim that you will actually save on the deal, by avoiding taxes is short sighted.

As for the barter networks; You will need to find a match up where a)you have something they want that you are willing to give away and b)they have something you want and that they are willing to give away. How much time and effort will this take? How much is your free time worth? Does it justify the saving on tax? Wouldn't it be easier and more efficient to just use ebay? That way you reduce it from a and b to a or b.

Now, some people do have a problem with compulsive spending, and should learn to throttle back. Others probably do not realise that if they were a bit more sensible about their consumption they could save themselves a lot. Aiming to improve the management of your personal finances is quite a desirable thing. But I don't think that this list of tips is particularly helpful in that regards.

Of course perhaps you enjoy being outdoors in the fresh air, in your garden growing vegetables. The thrill might even be amplified if you got to exchange the fruits of your labor for some tangible goods or services.
Or maybe you enjoy prenteding to buy things from the stores, and get a kick out of "spending" money that you don't really have.
Or perhaps you enjoy being creative, by taking old unused objects and putting them to some good use.
In that case, by all means, go for it. Have fun. Just don't think that it makes you a better person because of it.

I think the moral step up in this case comes from being above consumerism, to the point of saying that all those adverts purporting that certain goods will make me happy (and more succesful with the opposite sex, an advertising favourite) don't wash with me.

I'm not saying I agree with all of the original post, or that I would take the moral highground in their instance, I do think that consumerism does have a dark underbelly and we are sold lots of useless things by attempts to make us feel inadequate without them

I disagree with the article. Consumerism is great in my opinion; it makes money flow through our society which raises the country's GDP and eventually the people's standard of living.

But, I think that the reason I don't agree with the article is because I'm not the writers intended audience. From things inside the article like, "Set up direct deposit so that 10 percent or more of your paycheck goes automatically into a savings or investment account", I can tell that it is directed to wage workers. Specifically, to people of poor to lower middle class with problems of having money and debt (credit card). Another way to tell that this who the article is intended for is the related articles on the site. One of them is called, “How to save money for a major purchase”. Obviously, this these articles are not directed to people who shop for Prada and drive a BMW.

With that said, I think the article is good in directing those people on how to save for the future. I would imagine, the article is intended to open them up to ways to save for the long run (and spend time with their kids).