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.