The art of buying less is a bit like the art of getting into shape. Eating less without doing any exercise, or just exercising without changing our eating habits, simply won’t cut it. In order to achieve a sustainable and enjoyable lifestyle that will bring long lasting benefits, the physical act needs to go hand in hand with a new mindset. .
The benefits
Buying less as a lifestyle choice is not just about avoiding eating into our overdraft as we wait for the next pay cheque at the end of the month, but rather about developing the mindset to spend less money.
We can become so obsessed with material things that sometimes we lose sight of what is truly important. As a friend of mine once said “don’t get too hung up on the material stuff, we only keep them for a certain amount of time in this lifetime anyway!”
The buying-less philosophy is about understanding our needs and reprogramming our mind by educating ourselves that when we buy things that we don’t need all we gain is a short-lived pleasure. It’s about appreciating that when we learn to live with less, we can choose to work less and even retire early. It gives us the freedom to choose what to do with our time! Perhaps you’d like to volunteer or dedicate your time to help causes you feel strongly about?
Finally, having less stuff means that we need less space in our homes to store them, so we can live in smaller houses than we otherwise could. Smaller houses also mean less utility bills! An uncluttered home is good to our mental well-being and, buying less is also good to the environment. So, as you can see, there are plenty benefits!
Differentiating short-term happiness vs long-term happiness
“Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don’t need. “
Fight Club
We are constantly bombarded with advertising messages projecting images of goods and services that we are actively encouraged to buy and consume as if in doing so we would gain, not just the material good, but the success and lifestyle also. We are made to believe that by buying that something we will be happy. These sparkly and glittery adverts make it very hard for people to save money or live within their means, as their ultimate and repetitive message is always the same: buy more! But do we need to consume so much? Do we really need this or that?
We need to change the way we view consumerism and become self-aware of how it affects our path to purpose. A one-off impulse purchase can give us short-lived instant gratification, but it’s the lifetime experiences that give us long-term gratification. It’s only when we truly understand this that we chase to be part of mass consumerism and, free of the strings that have held us hooked on buying more, we become indifferent to its temptations making its measurements of success and power no longer applicable to us.
Choose wisely
We all have different needs and different taste in life. While it may be easy for me to say “no” to buying an expensive painting, it may be too difficult a temptation for someone who really loves art and gets great pleasure from looking at it.
Truly, what it comes down to is understanding our core beliefs and learning to compromise.
In 2017 I took a two-year and three-month sabbatical to go and live on a tiny Spanish island called Menorca, not working by choice. I chose a lifetime experience over short-term gratification. This move required careful financial planning, but I like to use this example as a testament to the fact that buying less does not need to result in a miserable existence!
After a few deep and honest soul-searching conversations with myself, I decided this was something I wanted to do. So, I made some carefully evaluated financial choices to retain financial security without blowing my capital and end in poverty and went for it. I wanted sun, sea and a good lifestyle. I didn’t choose to go and live in California where your daily expenditure can be high. I carefully selected Menorca because the quality of life there is good and also cheap! Even though I lived in a beautiful three-bedroom villa with garage, pool, terraces and all types of comforts, I only spent a third of what I used to spend in London comparatively. I did this, while my investments earned me dividends as I sunbathed and cheered at spectacular sunsets. Of course, I also had to live by my means. For example, although eating out there is very cheap, I didn’t go out every night but only once or twice a week. I learnt to enjoy and appreciate the free things in life such as taking a walk along the beach, spending time with friends and simply living in the moment. I learnt a new language and embraced a new culture by mixing in with the locals and I even took some free courses with the Open University simply because I was fascinated about some of the topics. With my newly gained freedom, I enriched my life and gained greater happiness and satisfaction. Interestingly, as I did not work and as life on an island is pretty chilled, I also did not need work clothes and very quickly I begun to feel that buying anything new really had not much of a fascination to me anymore. As long as I had a pair of flip flops and some summer clothes all was good.
As an added bonus, when I returned to the UK, eager to unpack all of the beloved possessions I had left behind in a storage facility, I realized that my material things were not that important at all. Just furniture, bits and bobs. Just stuff. There’s a beautiful line that comes from a movie of which unfortunately I do not recall the title. In the movie the protagonist is heartbroken at having to store all of her possessions in a storage facility. As she locks the door, she looks at the manager begging him to look after her things, at which he replies “yes yes, I understand. It’s your life packed in there. Funny how some people never come back from ‘their life’ after all!” I think this line speaks volumes!
My point is, buying less will certainly result in having more disposable but, even better, learning to enjoy living with less is where you will find the potential to a more gratifying life. A state of mind that can provide a lifestyle in which your dependency on your job is broken and where mass consumerism’s rules and measurements of success and happiness no longer apply.
A lesson learnt in time
Normally, once people dig deep into their core beliefs in search of what makes them truly happy, gratified and fulfilled, it does not tend to be material things such as luxury cars or a private cinema room in the house. They tend to find that it’s rather time, relationships and life-experiences that truly adds to their long-term happiness.
My one-year expenditure in Menorca did not even come close to a mid-range new car and I strongly believe that no new car could have ever given me the same level of happiness and fulfilment.
Buying less is not about being frugal and living without enjoying or experiencing life. It means learning what and why is important to us and ensuring that it does not clutter our path to purpose in life. But as we learn to buy when needed and as we learn to be less interested in material things, we also need to learn how and where to compromise.
Easy steps to practice:
- Think of the “buying less” philosophy as a lifestyle and not as a temporary remedy to meet a financial goal.
- Practice the benefits of buying less by favouring long-term life experiences over material goods which will bring you more long-term gratitude over of short-term happiness.
- From time to time remind yourself that the more you buy the more you need to work to sustain that lifestyle. The less you buy the more you become free of consumerism and its absurd measurements of power, success and happiness.
- Understand that spending less does not need to be living a frugal life. Avoid failing due to overdoing it. You don’t need to cut out all the good things. Learn to compromise on the things that matter to you. You don’t need to justify it to others, but be true and honest to yourself. Do you really need to buy this?
- Rediscover yourself and your core beliefs. What brings you true joy in life? What brings you fulfilment? Learn to differentiate between what you need and what you want. As the song by Rolling Stones goes “you can’t always get what you want but sometimes you get what you need”. Don’t let your life be run by mass consumerism and don’t let possessions rule your goals in life.
- Enjoy the free things and learn to live in the moment! Take a walk, borrow a book from the library, enrich your knowledge by enrolling at a free course with the Open University, consider volunteering for a cause you believe in and spend time with your loved ones!
- Choose your role models wisely! Time to re-evaluate the Instagram influencers and celebrities you follow: do they display good solid values or are they all about product placement, expensive wardrobes and an unattainable lifestyle?
- Added tip…from time to time check your subscriptions. Do you still need them? It may be a small outgoing per month but over time they add up and it can be difficult to factor them in in our monthly expenditures as we don’t really see the cash leaving our wallet. Studies have shown that we are more likely to perceive the actual cost of something when we pay with cash instead of paying by card or direct debit.
