A year without shopping

I have been a little quiet on the blog recently. There are a number of reasons. Perhaps the most important one is that I have been writing my PhD dissertation. I’ve been researching it for a good few years but am now in the home stretch and last week I handed in the full text for review. I wrote a book!!! It’s not finished yet but it’s written and that’s a HUGE milestone that I wasn’t sure I would ever reach! So hurrah for me. And apologies for slacking in virtually every other area of my life while I was knee-deep in references on neoliberalism and consumer culture!

Anyway, this blog post is something I have been meaning to get around to for a while. As you probably already know, at the start of 2018, I made a promise not to buy anything new for a year. Since that year is now up, I wanted to reflect on that year, to be honest about my successes and failures and to talk about what I think were the most important learnings. And, since we’re now, unbelievably, a quarter of the way through 2019 I wanted to talk about what has happened after my shop-stop (as we say in Swedish).

First things first. How did my year of not shopping go?

Well, it wasn’t a year without any shopping at all. According to my own rules I could buy things that weren’t things. That meant experiences were okay, as were subscriptions to digital services like Netflix and Audible. I also allowed myself to buy second hand things, which I prefer to call preloved because I think it sounds more positive than second hand.

The experiences were honestly a god send. Christmas and birthdays would have been tough otherwise. I did make some gifts though and grew plants for people. And we also gave away some of my son’s toys and books as presents for kids we know. I thought this was a really nice learning for him. He got the chance to and think about things that he loved but didn’t use much any more and I was surprised about how mature and thoughtful he was about the process. There were a couple of times when we did buy small gifts for other kids, if we weren’t sure how they would react to preloved or experiential gifts. But most people, big and small, seemed really happy with experiences as presents. I feel like many of us feel time-poor these days, so getting a gift of time to spend together with a friend feels extremely luxurious.

Buying preloved was also great for me. I got to discover a lot of fantastic second-hand shops in Malmö with amazing clothes. But around half way through the year, I made a conscious decision to only go shopping when I actually needed something. Even though you avoid the environmental and social impacts of shopping are largely mitigated when you buy preloved things, I felt that I was becoming a secondhand shopaholic! And that wasn’t really the point of this no-shopping year. One of the problems I wanted to address with my no-shopping year was the amount of (unnecessary) stuff that I had in my home. So I weaned myself off the second hand stores and focused instead on swapping. I hosted swap parties where people brought clothes they didn’t want any more and took home things they did. Swapping forced me to be thoughtful about what I was bringing into my wardrobe because for everything that went in, something also had to come out!

Challenges and lessons learned

Six months into my no-shopping year, I wrote a blog post that detailed some of the challenges and failures I had experienced and, to be honest, not much has changed since then. Kids’ shoes are still my nemesis! I have continued to buy new shoes for my little boy when his old ones are too small and I can’t find what we needed preloved. And I’ll keep doing that. He only has one pair of shoes at a time and I don’t think that’s excessive. But there are always good reasons and justifications (just like this) for buying new things and that’s no accident. We have internalised the voices of consumer culture, which emotionally convince us, “you deserve this” or explain logically that it would be a false economy not to buy this now when it’s on sale. And this year of not shopping has been a good way to silence (most) of those voices.

Consumption often seems like an easy way to fix simple problems. Even those that stem from overconsumption. Too much stuff? Buy a new storage solution! Overweight? Buy diet food! By taking away the option to buy solutions, I was forced to look with fresh eyes at the problems I was trying to solve. There were usually different solutions and they were often better than simply buying something. For example, I made birthday cards for people instead of buying them. Making them took more time and effort than buying and therefore solved the “problem” of showing the recipient that I cared about them more effectively than buying would have.

Going forward

A lot of people have asked if I went on a big shopping spree when my no-shop year was over. Sorry to disappoint you, but nope. I haven’t really bought anything new since my year was up. I have managed to find almost everything I need preloved and I don’t really need much to be honest. I have focused on making use of the things I already have, especially clothes. For example, I’ve challenged myself to make sure that I wear every item of clothing and footwear that i own this year. If I don’t wear it, it will no longer get to live with me. And you can follow my little black dress challenge on instagram, if you don’t already.

I did buy one thing though, a case for my phone. I wasn’t able to find anything preloved so I did some research and found a product that was both ethically and sustainably made, wasn’t made of plastic and would biodegrade naturally when I eventually need to get rid of it. Unfortunately, after I ordered it, I realised that it would ship from the US, which isn’t entirely climate-smart but you can’t win them all. Sometimes it feels like shopping sustainably is a minefield. There can be something wrong with even the most thoughtful of decisions. That’s one of the reasons I stopped shopping altogether. I felt that was the onoyl way to make a correct choice.

But it’s not really possible to stop shopping forever. I do think most of us need to buy much less than we currently do. But I also think that, when we do buy things, we need help to make good sustainable and ethical choices. I am getting better at calling on my network and asking people who know more to help me when I have to make a decision on buying something. I use an app called Good on You, which rates various brands on their sustainability and ethics. I also rely on the significant knowledge and imagination in a facebook group called Sustainable Superheroes. The other members are always ready to share some advice on sustainability questions.

I am, of course, happy for you to tap my limited knowledge too. If you have questions or struggles about how to make more sustainable choices, leave a comment below. Happy (not) shopping!

Cover photo: @shannacamilleri