So Sallie Says

Last January, I committed to a “low-buy year” to curb my online shopping habit. I had rules, like that I could replace things that no longer fit me post-baby and I could not buy highly flammable Amazon matching sets peddled by influencers. I didn’t expect to be 100% successful and I shared some of my failures and loopholes mid-way through the year.

The experiment year is over, and here’s what I found.

Consumerism remains hard to resist

As hypothesized, I didn’t always stick to the plan. In fact, I give myself a C+. As the year went on my resolve dwindled, and I ended up on several shopping sprees. I’m not proud, but I’m also not beating myself up over it because this is not life or death, it’s sweatpants and sunglasses. Some of what I bought was necessary and most of it wasn’t, but I noticed I shopped when I was stressed, sad, or bored, or had some event or occurrence like returning to work. What can I say? The capitalist beast is relentless and it demands to be fed.

The point is, we live in a society that revolves around consumerism. A lot of people and systems work really hard to separate you from your money, and shopping elicits strong emotional and psychological responses that are hard to resist if you don’t constantly re-commit. And unfortunately, I’ve always been kind of a quitter.

But habits can change!

Half-way through the year, I doubted if I would be able to carry this lifestyle change through into 2026. And while I have mis-stepped I do think my relationship with buying clothes has fundamentally changed.

The urge to buy new outfits for every event significantly faded. I challenged myself to wear what I already owned for family photos, Christmas Eve, and work events. I became immune to Reels called “5 holiday outfits, Old Navy edition.”

I figured out what I really like to wear (and ended up buying more of those things, unfortunately). But I’ve gotten to know my clothes much better and developed outfit formulas that make it easy to get dressed. This also makes it easier to avoid things that work on-screen but not on-skin. And even though my clothes aren’t cute or trendy, no one cares!!! Your clothes are not you and my clothes are not me.

The purchase justification gymnastics

I noticed an interesting thing happening when I would want to buy something: I would tunnel-vision into a justification for buying the item, and pretty much black everything else out until I bought it, which really does sound like addiction.

I also started to think about my purchase justifications differently. I’ve always bristled at the concept of “lifestyle creep,” because people talk about it like one day you’ll accidentally buy a $400 hoodie and never financially recover. My lifestyle creep has actually just felt like wanting a bra that doesn’t hurt or shoes that don’t give me toe cramps — it’s not about extravagance, it’s about not suffering. But a year of buying less illuminated that I do in fact spend too much money on stuff, and usually the cheaper option will suffice because honestly most products are garbage anyway. Yay!

Buying less has made me calmer

People often talk about the financial strain of buying things, and even the physical strain on the environment. But I don’t think we consider the mental heaviness of having things. I have the type of anxiety that is directly triggered by stuff — where will it go in the house, who will keep it clean and organized, will we use it enough to make it worth it? Less stuff, less worry.

Also, the admin alone of online shopping is a huge deterrent for me. Most of the time I buy things online I come to my senses by the time it arrives at my house, and then I have to get my printer to work long enough to eke out the return label, package the thing up, and find 30 minutes to go return it at the POST OFFICE. I don’t get paid enough!

What I’m taking with me into the next year

It would be disingenuous to purport I have fully adopted a low-buy lifestyle forever, but I can confidently say that it feels like more of a mindset I live in now and less of an experiment. I don’t have to go full monk with it, but I do think it’s important to recommit and remind myself why it’s important for me and to me to spend less.

I’m also going to be using some of the tactics and strategies I picked up this year:

• Putting links to things I want in a Notes app. It wasn’t enough for me to just abandon my cart, but I found putting things in a place I could access them but removed from one-click Apple Pay helped — and most of the time a week later I had no recollection of the chokehold the thing had me in.
• The “Less of” and “None of” framework and being super specific about what went on those lists, versus going cold-turkey on vague categories. This method does require having an honest sense of what you anticipate needing and what you spend too much on, and I think this year gave me a good baseline for that type of inventorying.
• Continue my unfollowing spree. I have been on a digital decluttering kick and have been meticulously unsubscribing from email marketing and unfollowing influencers. It’s one small way to put up a little barrier between yourself and constant advertising and it really works. On the other side of this coin, my favorite follows this year have been de-influencers and people posting their normal lives.

I’m approaching 2026 as a low-ish buy year, with a somewhat healthier shaping relationship, a little more flexibility, and still way too many sweatshirts.