From September 2015 to August 2016, I completed a year-long shopping ban. When I told people I was doing the ban, I received varied reactions, from proclamations about how crazy I was, to admiration. But I can honestly say that it wasn’t that hard. Today I’m sharing my lessons from a year-long shopping ban so that even if you’re not interested in doing one yourself, you might get some ideas to help with saving in your own life.
For those of you that are subscribed to my YouTube channel…If you’re not, I’ll wait while you do that now… you’ll notice that my most recent videos have been mainly talking about investments and taxes related to investing. So why am I switching gears back to saving? There are a couple reasons. Firstly, Cait Flanders, who I absolutely copied when designing and completing this shopping ban recently came out with her book, the year of less. I’ll put a link to the exact shopping ban she created and the one that I followed, in the description below.
Cait put out an ask that anyone who completed a shopping ban share their own story about the ban, so this is my experience of one year without shopping . Secondly, I think it’s important to continue to talk about saving because while you can perfect what you’re doing on the investment side, the biggest contributor to your overall wealth is really going to come down to how much you save. For example, someone paying low fees investing in a broadly diversified fund earning 6% per year and saving $5,000 per year for 25 years would only be better off than someone saving ten thousand dollars per year if they made less than 1% every. single. year.
By completing a shopping ban, you can instill habits that will equip you with the ability to save more on an ongoing basis. If you’ve seen my video “How much should I save?” you’ll know that this process started with me realizing that my spending wasn’t quite as aligned with my values as I would have liked, so this year long shopping ban was a good way to kick-start a new values-based budget.
I could buy toiletries, makeup and household items like soap and toilet paper only when I ran out. Cait included no take-out coffee in her ban, but since I’ve only recently learned to tolerate coffee, I didn’t feel the need to remove that vice. You could say I was scared away when I heard that Millennials spend more money on coffee than retirement (if you want more details about that, I’ll leave the link for my video below). If you’re thinking of doing a ban, consider what you spend money on, but don’t value, and try and cut that out.
When I started, I found that my desire to purchase things moved from clothing and kitchen items to objects that I’d be allowed to purchase at some point during the year. I figured I’d need new eye shadow at some point, so I’d thoroughly research which one I wanted. I could only buy one item and had to keep it until it was used up, so I wanted to make sure it was exactly what I wanted. This carried over to all aspects of my life and turned into a habit.
I also started making a list of items I wanted to buy once the shopping ban was up. If I saw something I wanted, I wouldn’t immediately add it to my “to buy” list. I’d only add something to the list if I was still thinking about it weeks or months later. Most items never made it to the list. This was probably my biggest takeaway from the challenge. I still have a to buy list on my phone, and only once I’ve found exactly what I want will I purchase the product. If there are things that I’m not sure I really want anymore, they immediately get deleted.
Since I completed the ban from September to August, Christmas fell basically in the middle of the ban. I convinced my parents and siblings to draw names for Christmas gifts. Rather than rushing around before Christmas to buy gifts for everyone, we only had to get a gift for one person. My mom might disagree, but I think it’s been a huge success. It reduces the stress leading up to Christmas and allows us to enjoy the most important thing at Christmas: desserts, I mean each other. We still get the tradition of opening a gift on Christmas day, and it tends to be something we really wanted because everyone can pool their ideas for what to get each family member.
Finally, when starting the shopping ban, I knew I wanted to prioritize travelling. I started a separate savings account at a different bank with an automatic monthly deposit, to aid in saving for this goal exclusively. Since I wasn’t shopping anymore, I didn’t miss that money being siphoned into the account at all. And I still don’t notice now that the ban is done.
So what did I learn from my year long shopping ban? In a nutshell, it allowed me to prioritize my spending to be better in line with my values. I rarely make impulse purchases anymore. I appreciate everything I have so much better now. And I now focus on the quality of the items I purchase and ensure that they tick every box before purchasing.
Have you tried or are thinking about a shopping ban? I’d love to hear about it in the comments below.
