How to buy nothing and save more. What, why and how.

Welcome!

I’m Rachel and this year I’m undertaking a lifestyle choice and a social experiment.

I’ve been calling myself a revolutionary because I’m buying nothing new or second hand for a whole year.

Each month, in this column, I’ll be exploring and debating how to buy less and save more money using my own personal experiences and experiments. I’m keen to challenge and discuss hot topics like quitting consumerism, impulse buying, personal inventories and waste.

My own personal ‘buying nothing new or second hand for one year’ journey began in December 2012 on my way to India for the Mumbai leg of the BMW Guggenheim Lab. I read an article in the airport lounge about an Aussie family who had only bought ‘things and stuff’ from Op shops and second hand stores for a year.

I spent the run-up to the most consumerist time of year in one of the poorest places on earth, Dharavi Slum, Mumbai. On the streets and in the slums of Mumbai I saw people with next to nothing who really and truly valued everything that they had and owned and to be bluntly honest it made me feel guilty and deeply ashamed about our western world consumption. That same week I Quit Sugar’s Sarah Wilson tweeted “of the $50 billion we will spend on gifts in Australia this Christmas $700 million will be in landfill by February 2013”.

On New Year’s Eve 2012 my friends and I sat on the beach in Hawaii and made our New Year’s Resolutions. Whilst the others choose going to yoga once a week, exercising daily and leaving work on time for 2013, I announced I was “Buying nothing new or second hand for a year”. And so this non-conventional journey began.

Yes I tried it last year (2013) and lasted until the end of April. Last year I saw buying nothing as a hardship filled with doom and gloom. Like a year of punishment.

• As Rhonda Byrne says in the book The Secret ‘Negativity creates negativity’.

I failed, in Hastings Street in Noosa, with a pair of trousers which, ironically and ashamedly, I’ve worn less than 10 times.

• To rephrase Sir Ken Robinson – the most watched TED talk ever – if we are not prepared to make a mistake, we’ll never come up with anything original or creative.

This year (2014) I’m seeing ‘a year without buying’ as an awesome opportunity, an adventure and a whole new way of life – and I am LOVING it!

I’ve even created some ‘rules’:

• Yes, I’m ‘allowed’ to buy food and absolutely essential toiletries
• Yes I can buy ‘experiences’. Going to the movies, horse riding and dinners out is fine. It’s not ‘stuff’
• I’m not buying any new or second-hand clothes, shoes, books, itunes, computer things, newspapers, magazines, toiletries, perfumes, bubble baths, home wares, kitchen wares, household items or any general ‘stuff’

About me and ‘buying stuff’, I’ve learned this:

1. I’m using up what I already have. I used to travel a lot. I discovered 20 5g tubes of high brand toothpaste lurking in the back of the bathroom cupboard, so I’m using them up now, not saving them for ‘later’. Psychotherapist Stelios Kiosses, who works with extreme hoarders, says there’s a little bit of hoarder in all of us and even I questioned my sanity when I counted 84 bars of hotel soap. FYI I always used the soap during my hotel stay and then wrapped them up and brought them home ‘cos I knew the hotel cleaners would just throw the soap away – and that’s a complete waste of a bar of soap. Now I am using them all up, rather than buying shower gel!
2. I’m making better of use of my existing assets. I’m no Imelda Marcos but like most western women, if I’m honest, I only wear 50% of the clothes that I own. So I got ‘them’ all out – the entire contents of my wardrobe that is – I looked, pondered, sorted, re-arranged and put it all back and now I’m wearing them all this year. And the things I really don’t like. Well, I’m taking part in Clothes Swapping Parties with my friends. Apparently the average American buys 67 items of brand new clothes each year
3. I like sharing. A book “Who stole my mojo” I had wanted to read for ages turned up on the share shelf at my block of flats. I read it, I gave it back and now I’m swapping and sharing the books I already own with neighbours, friends and colleagues. Like Rachel Botsman says “we don’t need to own a drill we just want a hole in the wall”.
4. I’ve got more time – and cash – to spend on awesome days out. Most of all I’ve learned that lots of people spend a lot of time managing their stuff and it seems they’re desperate to share their pain. My friend Julie told me how she spent all weekend moving the stuff she doesn’t use around her garage. My bestie Sarah in the UK emailed with tales of finally clearing out ‘under the stairs’ whilst my colleague Jodie tells me it’s her family’s lifelong ambition to ‘downsize their junk’

Right now, though, I’m asking for men, women, children and families to Expression their Interest in being part of a 12 week ‘no buying’ BETA program.

Please contact me NOW!   Rachel(at)cyclingrachelsmith(dot)com or via my Social Media channels. Closing date for entries 31st October 2014.