Trying a Low Buy Year in 2024 and Addressing my Issues with Consumerism

My first post of 2024!

Last year was a year of both change and hard work. Reflecting back on the last 12 months, my life has grown and changed so much from this time last year. They say if you want to grow and encourage new and exciting things into your life you must first let go of the old and that has certainly been true for me. 

While some things have been exciting, it has been a year of change and that is not always the most comfortable place to be.

Moving forward into 2024, I want this to be one of the best years of my life and I am determined to continue this growth spurt. 2023 was a year I finally addressed some of my bad spending and habits with money, something I want to continue to address in 2024. For the first time in my life I started to learn about how to use money to work for me, how to invest and learnt many valuable lessons. I read a number of books on finances (such as Rich Dad poor Dad and the Psychology of Money) and subscribed to a number of YouTube channels to better understand how money works. 

Through this I started to develop a plan around my financial future and have made some decisions I think will help me improve my spending habits, one of these is trying a 'Low buy Year' for 2024. 

The Low Buy Year.

Something I have seen a number of women doing on You Tube is the 'low buy year' and I have decided that this year is the year I am going to give this a go. The amount of money I currently spend on nonsense is huge and I have nothing to show for it. Although I have retained my commitment to buying sustainable fashion and beauty, I don’t feel that I have ever properly addressed my issues with consumerism. 

This year I want to address this and I have set out the rules I will be following for the next 12 months. The aim of these is to save 7k in savings, pay off my credit card and address my attachment to consumerist culture by the end of the year.

Rules

A low buy year means different  things to different people, so this is what it will mean to me:

- Eating out once a month max

- No take away coffees - take it from home (and no coffee in the gym).

- Meal planning and doing one big shop online to save money from impulse shopping in the supermarket.

- No new clothes

- Wellness budget of 50 pounds a month (this is an area I will really struggle); can be spent on a beauty treatment, class or a supplement of my choice. 

- No new make up or cosmetics (unless replacing an item that has been used up)

- Unsubscribe from all subscriptions

- Unsubscribe from junk mail (a sale is a huge temptation)

- Nothing new for the house or garden (unless part of a renovation)

- Regift and sell as many items as possible.

- Focus on selling my old clothes rather than shopping for new ones. 

- Saving a third of my wage each month

- Not buying courses or learning apart from my examination fees for my CIM course. 

- Asking for a 30% pay-rise at work to help me reach my savings goals. 

I am hoping that this is going to help me address my attachment to 'things' and help me live a more financially stable and sustainable life. 

On top of this I would like to reduce the amount of clutter in my home so I can be more organised and have a clear space to live and work in. One of my barriers to this is I hate to throw things away as I feel like it is a waste of money, so this is something I want to address during the low buy year and really focus on selling things I don’t want or need around my home. This could be on Depop Ebay or Facebook Marketplace; but I am hoping that this will allow me to clear more out in a cost efficient way. 

I will be checking in every quater with honest updates on how it is going, where I have made a mistake or where I have found success. I feel like this will be a good way to hold myself accountable and keep myself focused on my goals and building the life I want. 

I think this resolution is going to be extremely difficult for me as my spending habits are appalling. I am hoping  this is a year of growth for myself where I can focus on what is a real priority and build a stable financial future for myself.

EB <3