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!