IDENTIFY PAIN POINTS This challenge is about rethinking your spending, particularly if you tend to buy stuff that winds up cluttering your home and stressing you out. To identify purchases to cut back on, locate areas of your home or life that overwhelm you, says Amanda Rakoczy, a Florida-based content creator who says she paid off $50,000 in credit card debt last year. If you’re tripping over kids’ toys or can’t find storage for unused home decor, for example, those types of expenses are likely worth trimming. New clothing was becoming a budget breaker for me. My closet felt like a mashup of passing trends, cheap clothes I’d buy online and postpartum necessities that didn’t reflect my personal style. For Rakoczy, beauty products were her vice. “Before I know it, I have 20 lip glosses by four different brands,” she says.
Rakoczy is now tackling a low-buy challenge with her family.
PERSONALIZE YOUR RULES
Practicality and realism are keys to success. “Most people fail the no-buy or low-buy because the rules don’t work for them,” Sokunbi says. I know not buying any clothes for a whole year isn’t realistic for me. So I am allowing myself to buy secondhand clothes, but only those that are made of better quality than what I already own — think 100% cotton, wool, cashmere, silk, denim. I did break my rules once to buy a pair of shoes I’d been eyeing for months — but they were deeply discounted, and the purchase didn’t feel impulsive or unplanned. I leaned into the new consumption habits I’m trying to form, and this one purchase didn’t open the floodgates to more spending.
Your rules can also be tailored to the season of life you’re in.
Rakoczy and her husband decided to divide their low-buy year into quarters. Each quarter has different rules that align with seasonal expenses and help the challenge fit better into their lives with two young children.
This quarter they’re focusing on saving money at the grocery store. “We felt like we had a lot of waste, and so we were able to reduce our grocery bill by almost $400 for the month,” she says. They simplified shopping trips, allowing kids to pick one snack for the week rather than many.
13
Powered by FlippingBook