I currently have a perfect track record of not buying anything in January, and the end is in sight. Not buying anything for an entire month is pretty simple. I can’t speak for everyone but for me, it turns out there just aren’t that many things I need. To be honest, most of the time when I’ve felt like shopping I’ve realized it’s just because I’m bored.

Earlier this week, however, I discovered something that I actually needed — a few more hooks out in the workshop. Moments like this have made me reflect on the word “need.” Do I need a place to hang my hat? (We’re talking literally, not figuratively here.) Not really. I could easily toss it on a workstation or leave it in the house. I could also drive a screw or a nail into a piece of wood and use that. It might rip a hoodie, but a little bit of tape might prevent that.

The other evening, Susan and I ran an errand at Dollar Tree. Don’t worry, the things we purchased fell fairly within our purchasing parameters. But while we were there I couldn’t help myself from dreaming about buying something plastic. I never noticed it before, but nearly everything in that store is made from plastic. Plastic bowls, plastic cups, plastic utensils, plastic storage containers… and plastic hooks. All kinds of plastic hooks. Hooks with sticky pads attached, hooks with screw holes, hooks with hooks on both ends that allow you to hook them to something and hook something else to the other end.

While I was busy moping around a store and not buying anything due to an increasingly maddening self-imposed rule, I remembered what I did the last time I needed a hook out in the workshop.

I 3D printed one.

When I bought my 3D printer I thought I would be printing things every day, and like all new owners of 3D printer I did for a few weeks. There are quite literally tens of millions of free models available to print and a pretty high number of those things are pointless. Thingisverse, a repository of free 3D printable models, has thousands upon thousands of trinkets and toys that people print and immediately end up given away to children or thrown into the trash. A guy only needs so many “dragon egs” on their shelf.

It’s easy to forget that you can also print useable things. I’ve printed this exact same hook before last year and for some reason, the memory of that just fell out of my head. My 3D printer is covered in stuff and dust — it just gets away from me.

There’s a level of atrophy that comes with 3D printers. Leave them dormant for just a couple of months and the 3D printer needs a jumpstart. The filament left within the printer itself turns brittle and breaks off. The whole thing needs leveling, a process that ensures your prints will turn out. Along with that, my memory of how to use the thing seems to atrophy even more. I forget what temperatures work best, all the little settings I’ve tweaked and even the names of some of the required programs. In time it all comes back to me but the ol’ noggin ain’t what it used to be.

But eventually I got it up and running again. Each hook took about an hour to print. It would have been simpler to just buy a couple of hooks from Dollar Tree, but I have a 3D printer stocked with filament so this seemed like a better use of something I already had. And the hour it took to print each hook gives you a lot of time to think about whether you really need or even want a hook. That’s what not buying anything in January has done for me. It’s given me time to think.

We’re six full days into the first month of our No Buy Year and so far things are going great. We haven’t bought anything at a store, we haven’t visited any thrift stores, and we haven’t purchased anything from Amazon. That last one has been the hardest for me. Due to purchases made in 2024, we still had a few packages arrive after the New Year. The number has trickled down to zero. I’m pretty sure our neighborhood Amazon delivery drivers think we’re dead.

And of course we’re still spending money. We’ve already been to Walgreens twice to pick up medications, and yesterday Susan swung into Walmart to pick up ingredients to make a pot of chili to fight off the incoming cold weather. The charge for renewing my Ninjas and Neon domain went through on the first. We’ve spent a little, but nothing that breaks our goal of acquiring more clutter.

BUT, my friends… I believe I have found a loophole. The agreement between Susan and I states that we won’t buy anything from thrift stores, antique malls, or garage sales. BUY. It doesn’t say anything about getting things for free.

The first Monday of every month on my side of town is Bulk Trash Pickup Day. Anything and everything that’s too large to fit in our big blue trash bins and meets the city’s list of requirements (no batteries, no refrigerators, no bodies…) can be dragged out to the curb, where it will be picked up for free.

Which makes the weekend before an absolutely great weekend to drive around and potentially discover some treasure other people may have sat out by the curb!

(Hey — I’m not buying it, right?)

Now, I realize this qualifies as a Spirit of the Problem Violation — our whole goal is to not keep acquiring “stuff” in 2025, and I never really pick stuff out of other people’s garbage to drag home, but in a weird kind of way it was almost like window shopping. We saw shelves, we saw kitchen appliances, and we even saw this large flat screen television laying by the curb. That last one was tempting.

If you recall, last month I sat my old 55″ television out for big trash pickup. When these things break there really is no repairing them. I’m sure the owner of the television I saw ran into a similar malfunction. And it didn’t occur to me until this very moment that it’s possible that’s my old television — that someone took it from my own trash pile last month in hopes that it worked or that it could be repaired. How funny would it be if people kept passing that same television around month after month on big trash pickup day? Oh, that’s funny!

And so, with only a slight tinge of regret, I left the television where we saw it. I have so many flat screen televisions that I don’t even have a place to put one. I don’t need it in any way; I just want it, because it’s a good deal. And that’s exactly the type of response we’re trying to curb.

Susan and I have agreed not to buy anything in 2025. There are so many exceptions and asterisks to our agreement that you could drive a truck through them and by the time you reach the end of this post you may wonder what we actually agreed to stop spending money on.

It all started a few years ago when a high school classmate of ours, Scott Dannemiller, wrote a book titled The Year without a Purchase: One Family’s Quest to Stop Shopping and Start Connecting. In honor of my friend’s achievement of not buying anything for an entire year, I promptly purchased the book.

This concept of setting strict spending boundaries has become known as a “No Buy Year,” which is… not what it sounds like. Confusingly, a No Buy Year doesn’t mean you don’t buy anything for an entire year. Of course people have to pay their bills and buy food. Most people say that essentials and consumables are off the table. Everything else is up for debate. Most people who attempt a No Buy Year agree not to buy non-essentials, like buying shoes when you already have some. I’ll tell you right now that over the past few days I’ve watched a dozen YouTube videos by people who attempted a No Buy Year and every single one of them used different parameters. For example, some people say they will spend money to have things replaced if they break, while others say they won’t. Most people have specific items or even entire categories that are off limits. Today there are multiple variations of the No Buy Year including the Low Buy Year and the No Spend Year. It’s all semantics, really.

The reason everyone’s parameters are different is because there are multiple reasons why people attempt this personal challenge. Some people attempt it as a way to save money. Lots of people do it as a protest against consumerism. There are others who resort to a No Buy Year to break shopping addictions. Our motivation for giving it a try is pretty simple: we have too much stuff. Our house, our garage, and even my workshop are filled to the brim. We need to take a break from bringing more things into the house while parting with some of what we have.

Because most New Year’s resolutions fail within the first month or two, Susan and I have decided to commit to this for the month of January. Our goal is to do it all year long, but agreeing to a month at a time seems more doable.

Shortly before the new year arrived, Susan and I sat down to make our lists of what we would and would not be spending money on in January.

Things we will be spending money on in January include all basic living expenses (mortgage, utilities, food, and medical expenses). That includes home maintenance, like pool supplies if needed. Also, anything that has already been bought and paid for but hasn’t arrived yet is okay. We may spend money associated with selling items online (packing material or shipping). Additionally, we agreed to a “no stockpiling” rule — no making a massive Amazon order at two minutes to midnight on New Year’s Eve.

Here are the things we will not be spending money on in January:

— Items for our toy booth (we have plenty of stock in the garage to sell.
— Clothes and shoes (we have plenty).
— No Amazon, eBay, thrifting, or garage sales.
— Gifts need to be experiences, not “things”.
— No physical media (use the library for books).
— No house holiday decorations.
— No gambling/casinos.

In addition to this, we plan to add some decluttering component to this. We’ll either be selling some stuff or donating some stuff. We haven’t worked out the details yet.

Most people who attempt a No Buy Year agree that bartering is acceptable in the event something breaks, but the thought of that makes me so uncomfortable that I can’t see me doing that. The one restriction on the list Susan and I will both have a problem with is the gift giving. We may end up changing to to set limits or something.

Many of the YouTubers I watched had financial motivations and took additional steps like unsubscribing from all pay services. Our focus is about acquiring less physical items and so that’s not really an issue for us.

As a part of this experiment we plan to track every single penny we spend throughout the month. That will be interesting to review at the end of the month. Hopefully by the end of January we can review how things went and do it again in February. We are planning to capture our attempt in some fashion — maybe a book, maybe a podcast, maybe a series of YouTube videos, maybe all of the above — so stay tuned for more updates!