Ever since we were nearing the end of 2020 I had begun thinking of ‘New Years Resolutions’ or goals (as I prefer to call them) for 2021. I had looked back on my previous years and thought “How do I make goals that are achievable? Goals that are realistic and not something I will do for a month, and then give myself an excuse not to do any further?” Well, if there is anything that 2020 has taught me (and I’m sure taught a lot of many people) is that nothing is permanent. The pandemic forced me to reflect and confront a lot of things that I had been avoiding, for example; the fact that I have SO MUCH stuff! Perhaps deep down I had always known that I am an excessive consumer, but was either too busy to think deeply about it or care enough. 2020 taught me to slow down, and with that slowing down came the realisation of how much useless crap that I have. I went through the process of decluttering, lecturing myself on how many silly purchases I had made and recognising that most of what I had bought only brought me fleeting moments of happiness…
Anyways, fast forward to December and I am scrolling the news when I came across an article by a journalist who had completed 12 months of no purchasing new clothing, or as she called it, her ‘low/no buy year’. Then I started googling this whole ‘low/no buy year’ thing and thought ‘okay, this is what I need to employ for 2021’. So I read article after article after article and came to the conclusion that I need to tailor this to what I want to improve on. Which leads me to…my list of low buys for 2021:
- No buying of stationery that I already have
- No buying of trinkets and display stuff
- Low buying of skincare
- Low buying of clothing and shoes
- Low buying of gym gear
- Low buying of make up
What I want to achieve is ultimately less physical items (which will help with the mess in my house and the never ending cleaning and tidying), less consumerism and a more conscious mentality to what really makes me happy. My aim is to give monthly updates on what I have and have not purchased, why i’ve made those purchases and where they were a necessity or not. I am hoping with this exercise that I can become more appreciative of the things that I have and get rid of the consumer mentality.
Thank you for reading this post (if you’ve gotten this far), I look forward to keeping you updated!
-April