‘I TOOK THE NO-BUY SAVINGS CHALLENGE – NOW I LIVE IT PERMANENTLY’

It often feels like you can’t leave the house without spending at least £30. A cup of coffee, a meal deal and simply getting to work all add up, even before any impulse purchases in your lunch break.

Everyone is looking for ways to save cash. A very extreme form of this is a no-buy year, with 12 months of living on the bare essentials: groceries, toiletries and bills, including petrol. Though the rules vary, the ambition is to save as much as possible, with some charting their progress on social media.

Kirsty Kirby, 41, is one such saver. In March 2020, she was inspired by a TED Talk to not spend any money for a whole year.

“My rules were pretty simple. I could only buy things I needed, and nothing just because I wanted it,” Kirby, from South Yorkshire, explains.

“Aside from rent, council tax, and other basic bills, I purchased food (but no takeaways or meals out), cleaning products and any personal hygiene products that I ran out of.”

At the time, friends thought it was “rather extreme”, but she had already been aggressively saving for a few years for a house deposit, limiting the amount of clothes, make-up and holidays she purchased.

“The hardest moments were seeing what other people were buying on social media,” she admits. “It almost became a game to see if I could make it another month. The changes in my bank account were a huge motivator to keep going.”

Kirby saved an additional £300 to £400 a month, which felt like an “impossible” amount when she began. “I saved around £16,000 in that year and purchased my first home in August 2021.”

Since then, Kirby has set herself other financial challenges including a “low-spend” year in 2024, to fund home improvements such as replacing a boiler and renovating the bathroom. Though her no-spend rules were more relaxed, she saved another £15,000.

Kirby credits the no-buy year for transforming her finances and spending habits.

“I don’t shop because I’m bored or I’ve had a bad day,” she says. “I have fewer, but nicer things, as I avoid buying on impulse. My goal in the coming years is to overpay my mortgage, fund some further changes in my home and invest more.”

‘It’s a mindset shift’

Interior designer Kiran Singh, 47, had a similar epiphany in her mid-30s, when she achieved all of her aspirations – a house overflowing with beautiful, lavish stuff – and realised none of it made her happy.

“I’m from Norway and I was brought up with the mindset that the more you have, the happier you would be,” she says. “But I was working full-time, setting up a business, doing school runs and after-school clubs, and I didn’t have time to live my life.”

In 2018, Singh started simplifying her life. She downsized from her house in Watford to an apartment by the sea in March 2020, and trimmed down half of her belongings. Even with the substantial reduction in her lifestyle, Singh was determined to improve the quality of her life and her financial future.

After several years of cutting back on expenses, Singh started her first no-buy year in 2022 and has just completed her third year.

Her rules were simple: she could only buy groceries and gifts for loved ones, and only essential empty toiletries could be replaced. She works from home, so she spent nothing on commuting. Everything else was gone: no entertainment subscriptions, no single-use items, one meal out a month (which she didn’t always use) – everything had to be second-hand.

It involved auditing her life to repurpose existing items, which she viewed as a chance to reduce her environmental waste too. As a life-long bargain hunter, Singh was shocked to save an extra £1,000 in her first no-buy year.

“It was surprising and challenging. When you have a low-buy year, you can treat yourself a little here and there,” she shares, “but in a no-buy year, I had to [ask myself] do you really need to spend money on that? Can you put that money aside for something else?”

Three years on, Singh’s no-buy year continues but with modified rules to reinvest some of the money she’s saved into travelling, such as solo trips to Paris and visits back home to see her family.

Not only has it transformed Singh’s finances, but her mindset too, as she now views underconsumption as a “sustainable” lifestyle choice.

“As soon as my daughter is able to move out, I’m going to buy a caravan,” she adds. “There’s more than enough space for me and it gives me freedom to take my home with me whenever I want to go.

“It’s a mindset shift of asking what’s really important to you. Is it buying another jumper 10 or 15 times? Or putting it aside to save for something bigger?”

‘Every purchase has to be really considered’

For many people taking on a no-buy year, their biggest vice is clothes. Leena Norms, 34, pledged not to buy any new or second-hand clothes in 2024. If anything broke, she’d have to repair it or make herself a new one by hand.

From knitting jumpers to making a regency-style dress for the Jane Austen Festival in Bath, her own outfit for Taylor Swift’s tour, and even attempting to darn knickers, Norms enjoyed the challenge of doing it herself.

Throughout the year, Norms had “moments of frustration” and had a major wardrobe malfunction before an event, but she remained committed to her no-buy year.

“I was going to a really posh party and I was wearing a jumpsuit. I bent down and it ripped down the whole side from boob to butt,” she recalls. “I thought this is the moment where I would be allowed to even just go to a charity shop and buy a new outfit, but then I was like, I’ve got three hours. Can I work this out?

“I bought a £3 sewing kit and sat in the toilet of a pub, naked, because it’s a jumpsuit, sewing it up. It was testing, but I did it!”

From cutting back on spending, Norms, author of the book Half-Arse Human, was able to invest in other areas of her life in ways, such as splurging on a full arm sleeve tattoo.

The resistance to impulse buying had a ripple effect, and she ended up selling most of her clothes.

“I thought I’d hoard everything as I couldn’t buy anything new,” Norms admits. “But I actually ended up selling a lot of stuff. I realised how a lot of my clothes were impractical or uncomfortable, and faced the fact I’ve made a lot of poor purchases that didn’t work. It meant I made an extra £200 on Vinted.

With the success of the first year, Norms is repeating her no-buy year for 2025 but with the additional luxury of two coupons a season to invest in second-hand clothes or those from small businesses – and new bras, which she confesses are very hard to make.

“It means every purchase has to be really considered,” she says. “I’m going to see how that goes because I think it’s unrealistic to not buy any new clothes ever again. There will be things that I just can’t make.”

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2025-01-17T14:05:04Z