No buy? No way
Reducing consumption is all very well but I need lampshade reducer rings
Everywhere I look on the internet, someone with an annoying fluffy mic in front of their face is telling me not to buy anything all year. Or, at the very least, all month.
Quite often this instruction comes from a disembodied head and shoulders, floating on top of a video of a pristine fridge being filled with see-through boxes of cheese strings.
No sooner is there a trend for decanting your cherry tomatoes into a special cherry tomato storage container than there is a counter trend to leave your cherry tomatoes in their unaesthetic Lidl bag.
A buy nothing year is the logical conclusion of this second option. Under these strictures it is acceptable to buy salad, just not to rinse Amazon for fancy new salad receptacles.
Or for anything else.
There always seems to be something to give up in January and this year it’s buying stupid shit.
This is basically an excellent plan. Most of us have more than enough stupid shit already. As a committed charity shopper I see capitalism’s misshapes and mistakes at the end of their cycle. Exercise gizmos still in their boxes. Pristine recipe books from two diet fads ago. Gift sets still in their boxes, celebrity biographies with their spines uncracked. So many Pinches of Nom, Bayliss and Harding body lotions and insights into the mind of Liz Truss.
But like Veganuary and Dry January, it’s a big ask to pivot from the retail armageddon of Christmas to buying nothing but groceries for a long, dreary month.
Here’s my excuse - I used the Christmas holidays to do several tasks I’ve been putting off since March. These involved the most boring Amazon order in living memory: lampshade reducer rings for a newly mended standard lamp, fake stained glass for a long awaited revamp of my front door, Spray Mount to rescue a couple of framed prints that have gone adrift and the skoosh and mop floor cleaner that makes the house smell delicious.
(I previously made the mistake of buying an inferior floor cleaner that makes the house smell like the Yankee Candle shop and, as a result, have not washed the floors since November.)
Welcome to Dreary Buy January.
Not one of these was a fun purchase. Spray Mount is far from cheap - £9.17 for 200ml. No dopamine was released by this transaction. That will come later, when I finally get round to fixing this picture of a sad princess done by my daughter that I have carefully preserved these last 20-odd years.
But if I was doing no-buy January, she would be destined to weep, skew-whiff in her frame, for another month.
My single biggest expense for this month has been driving lessons for my son. Make that more driving lessons for my son. Obviously no one has children to save money but, just as it feels like the spendiest days are in the rear view mirror, they need to learn to drive.
Ouch.
Then they need to go out and practise what they have learned at vast expense. (That would be my vast expense.)
This often involves stopping off for errands and snacks along the way.
Last week, my son drove us to Ikea to return some light bulb. So far, so wholesome.
Of course he was starving. He was actually worried that eight meatballs would not be enough, so had fries and garlic bread as well as the mash they came with. Followed by coffee and Daim bar cake.
Oh to have the metabolism of a 19-year-old.
Did I escape without buying anything? Hahahahaha no of course not. I needed napkins and candles. I always need napkins and candles. But, in the spirit of no-buy January, I passed on the plants, placemats and reduced Christmas decorations.
Social media is not the place to find nuance or subtlety but I did like one person’s suggestion that, instead of not buying anything in January, to prioritise spending on fun and passing on the joyless or the pedestrian.
I’m not sure where my lampshade reducers fit on that spectrum but it’s a basically a solid idea. Brunch with friends - yes. A bang average coffee when you will be home soon and can make one there - no.
A treaty weekend away in miserable March? Hell yes. The cherry tomatoes can fend for themselves.
Bang on, as per. I have lost my Substack mojo. Is this a January thing? Sick and tired, you've been hanging on me...
Recognise all of this