Fed up with a bulging closet of unworn old clothes and an over-flowing bookshelf, Emma Clifton decided to embark on a year-long spending freeze at the beginning of 2024. Here’s what she learned along the way and her advice for doing a ‘no buy 2025’.
This time a year ago, I was about to embark on a ‘spending freeze’ which is where you don’t spend money for a year (as far as social media trends go, this one is at least blessedly simple to understand). I was inspired partly by Ethically Kate’s great story on doing a wardrobe freeze, and Ann Patchett’s story on not buying things for a year. With my greatest El Paso attitude, I thought, ‘Why can’t it be both?’
And so, I set up a slightly ad-hoc spending freeze: no clothes, no books, no random purchases, with a giant caveat: I could break it when I was on holiday, because I was going away with my family in the middle of the year. Because I am sneaky, I also allowed myself to expand this to ‘holiday related purchases’, but even with this caveat, I still kept my spending freeze for 95% of 2024.
Almost one year later, I’ve seen the chat about doing a ‘no buy, 2025’ starting to go viral. So, I will tell you, yes, doing a spending freeze has changed me for the better. I have a better understanding of my spending habits, my clothing choices, when I spend to get out of an emotional state, and how I will keep these lessons in mind moving forward. It’s also opened my eyes up to the world of renting clothes (AMAZING). As well as that, it has radicalised me in two ways I didn’t quite see coming: the capitalism trap of social media, and why our world is a hellscape of consumerism. Fun!
Lesson One: I Have More Understanding of My Emotional Health
Two months into my spending freeze, my family and I were in Wellington and my wee son, who has a severe dairy allergy, accidently dipped his hand into my cold flat white, with the lightning-fast reflexes that toddlers have. One kind but very scary ambulance trip later, my mum, my son and I emerged, shaking, into the nearest shop: Country Road.
My mum was desperate to find something, anything, for us to buy; a dopamine hit and some self-soothing after a very scary incident. But I had this spending freeze rule by then, so I was forced to just… be emotional. It was INCREDIBLY uncomfortable – all I wanted was something to buy, but I didn’t. It was the starkest I had seen my emotional connection to shopping: when upset, scared, stressed, happy or excited, I shop. It proved to me that I needed to stick with this.
Lesson Two: I Used My Own Things More
Because you can’t buy your way into a new outfit, you’re forced to get to know your own clothes again (and in my case, because we share a body type, my husband’s clothes as well). I dug out old clothes, put them together in new ways, looked at Pinterest – instead of Instagram – for outfit inspiration and made it work. This was something Ethically Kate mentioned in her own story about doing a spending freeze, and it was bang on – with no fast new options, you’re forced to get creative and it makes you a better dresser!
It was the same with not buying books – I read the hundreds of books I already owned and used my local library more. I ended up reading way more books than usual, had zero guilt about not finishing books I didn’t enjoy, and then kept a list of my favourites to buy for people as presents throughout the year (support local bookshops for LIFE).
Lesson Three: I Realised That We Live In A Capitalist World That Seeks To Distract Us From Daily Horror With Shiny Things
Not to be all, ‘Get in, comrade, we’re joining the revolution,’ but when you cannot spend money on your phone, you realise that your entire phone – and, in fact, most of society – is set up to cause you to constantly want new things and spend money.
Instagram is a 24/7-hour shop, designed to take away the pain points of spending; you don’t need to leave the house, you don’t even need to go and get your card anymore. Just get a wee code sent to your phone! So easy, you don’t have time for the rational part of your brain to kick in. If I can give you one immediate change to make, take the ‘card details autofill’ off your Instagram. By disrupting the process, you can disrupt the false sense of urgency and put some time between you and your purchasing reactions.
It wasn’t just social media; I noticed how much my email inbox was flooded with deals deals deals which had usually enticed me to spend. A 20% off code for pyjamas I don’t need? That was catnip to Past Me! So, I unsubscribed to everything and unfollowed all of the brands I followed on Instagram.
For the first couple of months, I kept a list of things I wanted to buy when my year was up. But I gave up on that very quickly, because once the social-media-induced-panic had dissipated, I just felt like an idiot having a list that read: ‘Fisherman jumper!!!!’ No item of clothing is worth four exclamation marks.
It’s not just clothes – slowly, even our personal social media platforms have morphed from ‘here’s what I did’ to ‘here’s what I bought.’ And once you see it, you can’t un-see it.
Lesson Four: I Got Enraged About The State Of Consumerism
If you need a reminder of just how much damage cheap clothing and products is doing to the world, watch the harrowing documentary Buy Now: The Shopping Conspiracy on Netflix, which has whistle blowers from billion-dollar companies talk about how these apps, brands and platforms are knowingly creating literal mountains of waste – and where all of those discarded clothing and products end up (on a beach in Ghana, in one example). Or, read our piece from Tearfund on the rise of Temu in NZ – and the ethical cost of such cheap products.
We get a lot of complicated messages about how to help the environment but one of the simplest ones is to just buy less. It means less packaging, less waste, less air miles to get it to you, less stuff to clog up your house. As Ethically Kate said in her chat with Capsule, owning things is a responsibility – when you look at something you want to buy, think ‘am I willing to be responsible for this for the next three years?’ If the honest answer is no, move on.
Lesson Five: I Learned To Check Clothing Labels
If you have noticed that the clothes you buy these days aren’t lasting as long as the clothes you bought 10 or 20 years ago, you’re not alone. The quality of our clothes is getting worse as companies push to include a higher percentage of plastic over natural fibres, as customers demand lower prices and faster turnaround of products. Amanda Mull wrote a great piece for The Atlantic – there’s a companion podcast here – about how the laws around clothing manufacturing have changed and while that sounds INCREDIBLY DRY, it’s actually really interesting, and very important to understand why so many clothes are such bad quality these days. They’re being created to last a season, rather than a lifetime.
So, What’s Next?
I took a break from my spending freeze when I was overseas with my family and, frankly, went straight back down the rabbit hole of spending during that fortnight. So, I clearly still need rules. Now, I’m looking to buy second-hand only; to me, it’s the perfect antidote to the problems raised above – marketing, waste, lack of quality – and still means I get to enjoy the sound of the mail person ringing my front doorbell, just with a lot less regularity than before.
If you’re ‘spending freeze’ curious, I can’t recommend it enough – it really was a powerful wake-up call for me. You end up with more time and more money, and something even more tantalising – a greater sense of control over your life. Now THAT’S a great deal.
