Buy Nothing New for a Year?
By Ryan Healy | January 19, 2008
If you suffer from a high debt load or a compulsion to spend money shopping, then perhaps you should try this:
Buy nothing new for an entire year.
I didn’t come up with this idea. Neither did Timothy Ferriss, but that’s where I learned about it. Essentially, 10 friends from San Francisco committed to buying nothing new for a year. Here’s an excerpt from Ferriss’s blog…
The group called themselves The Compact, after the Mayflower Compact, and pledged that for the entire year, they would purchase secondhand or borrow everything they needed, except for food and essentials like toiletries and medicine.
The reason this group of friends decided to undertake such a project was to reduce their environmental impact. They had observed the negative effects of modern materialism and consumerism, and decided they wanted to do something to help protect the planet and our natural resources.
I applaud The Compact’s motives. Yet it occurs to me that this “experiment” would also be revolutionary for anybody struggling to pay down debt. Imagine how much you would save… and how much more creative you would become… if you committed to not buy anything new for one year.
More importantly, imagine how much progress you could make on debt reduction!
The benefits would be many. Here are some additional positive side effects I can think of:
- Less clutter around the house.
- More time to spend doing things of value.
- Less dependence on MasterCard and Visa.
- Easier to adopt a cash-only lifestyle.
- Improved problem-solving skills.
- No more keeping up with the Joneses.
- Work less and still pay all your bills.
- Instill better values in your children.
- Accelerated debt reduction.
So how do you get started with such an experiment? First, if you are married, you will have to get buy-in from your spouse. This may not be an easy task. Perhaps you can explain the benefits as I have here.
After you get buy-in from your spouse, it’s only a matter of starting. You don’t have to wait until January 1. Simply mark the day you start (which can be any day of the year) and then go one year without buying anything new. If you decide to do this, please let me know. In the mean time, I’ll be sharing the idea with my wife.
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Topics: Debt, Frugal Living | 9 Comments »
9 Responses to “Buy Nothing New for a Year?”
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February 5th, 2008 at 5:01 am
[...] Buy Nothing New for a Year? at Debt Reduction Formula. Now THAT’s frugal! [...]
February 5th, 2008 at 6:58 am
[...] Debt Reduction Formula, we hear about what it could be like if we didn’t buy anything new for a year. [...]
February 9th, 2008 at 2:14 pm
[...] I collect more data Another thing saves a ton of money and a ton of environmental damage is to not buy anything new for a year. I have come close to this not buying more than a couple of new books in a year. Beyond that I [...]
March 22nd, 2008 at 3:16 pm
Hello everybody, my name is Damion, and I’m glad to join your conmunity,
and wish to assit as far as possible.
June 30th, 2008 at 11:17 am
[...] We canceled our YMCA membership. We cut back on our Starbucks visits. And we adopted a mindset of not buying things unless we truly needed [...]
July 15th, 2008 at 3:25 am
We have just embarked on a 6 month Buy Nothing New project, only to discover that there are many, many people out there doing the same! We are a young family, and half the challenge is to stop drowning in baby ’stuff’! As far as debt is concerned, this goes a long way to keep us out of debt, as I am now a full time mother. We decided to create a blog to inspire others and generate debate: http://notnewyear.wordpress.com
All the way across the Atlantic Ocean, the Furey Family.
July 15th, 2008 at 10:39 am
Cool, Tammy!
I understand the “baby stuff” problem, especially stuffed animals. We don’t buy them, but family members gift them.
I dropped in on your blog. Keep up the good work.
August 25th, 2008 at 11:50 am
[...] Debt Reduction Formula explores the idea of buying nothing new for a year [...]
September 23rd, 2008 at 2:38 am
Hey this is a great idea. I like the enviromental touch of it. I have been following this for 4 months and is very useful to see how the house is more organized, less trash to collect and even less worries as there’s more money to save and even to share(some of the money saved I’m giving it to a charity).