Low Buy Year 2025 - January Summary
{Intentionality and Delayed Gratification}
And just like that…the first month of the low buy year is over. Well, actually, it wasn’t just like that - was it just me or did January feel like the looooooogest month ever? We really deserve to have the shortest month of the year next!
If you are also doing a low/no buy challenge, how was the first month for you? Did you have any triumphs/struggles? Need to make any adjustments? Did you find the planner useful?
Now that the month is over, I feel like it went ok. I struggled to define a few things that I spent my money on and friends in the community chat helped me work through that.
I also struggled a little at the end of the month with wanting to buy something but not having the funds to do so and therefore, I’m having to be patient and I’m crossing my fingers that my patience pays off!
Ok, enough blabbering, and on with the summary!
In this newsletter:
☑️ Everything I Spent Money on This Month (Purchases, Services, Replacements)
☑️ Wardrobe Inventory Update
☑️ Lessons Learned
☑️ Addition to the “Low Buy Toolbox”
☑️ My January Worksheet
Everything I Spent Money On This Month
Purchase #1 - Brown Frye Moto Boots ($148)
When January started, I already had my first purchase under my metaphorical belt.
I had ordered a pair of Frye Moto boots on Christmas Eve and they were delivered on January 2. My decision to keep or return them ended up being quite the experience, which I wrote about in this post, where I analyzed the purchase like my life depended on it 😅.
Spoiler: I kept them.
And while I styled them a number of different ways in the post to ensure that they would be a good addition to my wardrobe, I’ve only worn them out in the wild twice so far:
But I envision these boots getting more wear when there isn’t snow on the ground!
Services ($90)
On January 14, I shared the following in the community chat:
“I think that I made the second purchase of my low buy today, but it was for a service, as opposed to a material item. I've had 3 pairs of dress pants in my alterations pile for over 2 years. They all had blind hems originally and I have been meaning to learn how to use the blind hem foot on my machine but I kept putting off. Finally, I just decided to find a skilled seamstress and pay her to do it. I dropped them off last week and I picked them up today. They turned out great! The cost of the service was $90 and it was worth it. As I can now add these 3 pairs of dress pants into my wardrobe, and I have no money left to spend on clothes, I'm considering this my second purchase for the year. Would you consider an alteration a purchase?”
With feedback from the community, I decided to not include the service as a purchase. I think I felt guilty because I was essentially “adding” 3 pair of pants to my wardrobe, and although I had bought them all around 2 years ago, it felt like a grey area.
Replacements
#1 - Running Shoes ($125)
The last time that I bought running shoes was in November 2023, just after the start of my no buy year. I thought that I would probably need another pair before the year was over but I didn’t end up running as much as I thought I would. But I did walk quite a few miles in them!
Over the past few months, I’ve been noticing a few little aches in my left knee when I run which is always an indicator that it’s time for new running shoes.
I really like the On Running brand of shoes. I’ve had 2 pairs of the Cloudmonsters in the exact same colorway. However, this time around, I decided to try the Cloudsurfer shoes, since last season’s model was on sale for $125.
#2-4 - Skincare
I also had to replace some skincare items this month. I don’t change up my skincare, haircare or beauty products very often. I had acne as a teen/young adult and that taught me to stick with the products that actually work!
This month, I was running low on 3 skincare items - face wash, sunscreen and skin repair balm. I could have waited to buy the sunscreen because I’m only just getting to the very end as I write this on January 31, but I buy my products at Target and sometimes they run a promotion where if you spend a certain amount on some category, you get a gift card. So I like to stock up on the things we use often when these promotions are going on.
The money I spend on these types of products gets attributed to a different part of our family budget as these are considered “necessities”. However, I do have 1 face serum that I like which I consider to be a “luxury” and I do include that one in my personal spending budget as it’s more of a want.
Wardrobe Inventory Update
I’ve spent so many years avoiding inventorying my wardrobe, I think in large part because I didn’t want to be hit with the hard truth of how much clothes I owned. After spending the better part of a decade chasing a minimalist wardrobe, I was a little obsessed with numbers and I knew that no matter how many capsule wardrobes I put together, I would never have a truly minimalist wardrobe.
After doing the no buy year and now this first month of the low buy, I’m no longer chasing any type of lifestyle - while I don’t want to have clutter, I do want to have things that I love and use, and I’m no longer concerned with having as few things as possible.
And because of my drastic reduction in consumption over the last 1+ years, I’ve been able to reduce my clothing down to a more manageable amount and I don’t feel as overwhelmed by the idea of inventorying it all.
So, on January 13, I downloaded the Indyx app and created an account. And for a couple of days, I was all in and so excited about it. I added 59 items of my cold weather wardrobe, so over 2/3s I would guess. But I lost steam after the first few days and now I fear I’ll never be able to take advantage of the month-long free trial that would allow me to get all the stats on my wardrobe.
Honestly, I don’t know how much I’ll use the app. I will definitely put all of my items in there so they are easily accessible when I need to know exactly what I already have and so that I can make cute outfit combinations with them.
But I don’t know that I’ll document my daily outfits - I already do that in my outfit diaries on here which I really enjoy doing and I can add so much more information about the items/how I felt in a long-form post.
I also plan to do quarterly stats on everything that I’ve worn and I imagine I’ll refer back to these diaries to do that - I love an Excel spreadsheet so I’m kinda chomping at the bit to enter my own information!
Lessons Learned (or at least the start of)
I think two main lessons came out of this month - not just this month because I think I’ve been learning them for a while, but they became apparent to me this month. Perhaps it’s because I am back to adding things to my wardrobe, and thinking about what I might add.
1. Intentionality - unlike my no buy year, where I avoided shopping temptation as much as possible, with the low buy year, I welcome it! Learning to resist impulse purchases feels a little like weight lifting - you have to train your muscles a little at a time in order to build them.
Being able to buy things, but having a limit in place means that I need to be very intentional with what I choose to buy so as to not “waste the purchase” on something that I won’t wear often.
I feel like the low buy is a more realistic way to approach my wardrobe.
2. Delayed gratification - my main weakness is impulse shopping at thrift/consignment shops. It’s the whole “if I don’t buy it now, it might be gone” bit that gets me most of the time. I have been able to leave things behind by using the following reason:
If it’s meant to be, it’ll still be there once I’ve had time to decide if it’s a good purchase for me to make, and if it’s not, then I’ll be happy for the person who bought it.
And while this works sometimes, I have a very hard time walking away from something that I KNOW will be a great addition to my wardrobe. Even if I don’t have any spending money left for the month, I will borrow it from my budget for the next month, which is not good (it reminds me of how I used to treat money when I was a compulsive shopper) and it’s something that I’m working hard to break!
I had a real breakthrough a few days ago (I shared this in the community chat):
1.28 - I thought that I'd share a triumph today - I went to a consignment shop to drop some things off from a recent declutter - I have to wait until February so they still sit in the back of my car. But, since I was there, I decided to have a look around. I ended up taking 4 things into the changing room - a grey wool coat with fur trim, a red ski cardigan, a black beaded vest and a tan suede jacket with fringe. Had I not been doing my low buy year, I'm quite certain that I would have bought all 4 items. I came really close to making the wool coat my second purchase and I think that if it didn't have the fur trim I would have. As I was driving home, I decided to drop into another consignment shop and I found a wool sweater from Glendalough Woolen Mills in Ireland. And I really loved it. I would have made it my second purchase but I left it behind because I don't have any spending money left for the month (and I didn't have any credit at that shop). So, I've decided to go back on the 1st to get it - if it's there, it was meant to be and if it's not, I'm really happy for the person who gets to own it.
Low Buy Toolbox
When I shared my Low Buy Plan back on December 21, I wrote that I envisioned developing a Low Buy Toolbox that will contain a number of resources to help us resist purchases and support us during the challenge.
The first addition to that toolbox (as a refresher) was a comment from Misty:
“Something I'm doing (started last week) is to send the item through the "gauntlet:" I have to be willing to give up 2 items I already own to get it, and if I'm OK with that, I have to be able to create at least 10 casual and 10 work outfits before I can buy it. I have a wardrobe app that makes the last part easier to check. I've tried this with 3 things so far and decided against all of them.”
In January, Vita shared how she was playing a “Low Buy Bingo” and I thought that was such a great idea, so I asked for her permission to share it with you and she kindly agreed:
I didn’t get a chance to start this in January but I think I will give it a try in February! Thanks for sharing, Vita!
My January Worksheet
One of things I want to change is the way that I perceive my no/low buy challenges. I feel like I missed and opportunity when I did my no buy and I saw it as a punishment instead of what it really was: an opportunity. And I think that was the reason that I rebounded once it was over. Even though I made it through, I looked at it as a period of deprivation and I deserved a reward for successfully punishing myself for a year.
But I’m not going to make the same mistake this time around: I am seeing this low buy as the opportunity that I know it can be! An opportunity to heal. An opportunity to replace my compulsive shopping tendencies with intentional ones. An opportunity to slowly remove the items that aren’t right for me and to replace them with ones that “feel like me”.
If you would also like to use the free Low Buy Tracker and haven’t downloaded it yet, you can do so here:
Well, I guess that’s it for January. I’m happy to have the first month out of the way and I’m excited for the rest of the year.
In a way, it feels like things are starting to click - or is that just a naive hope after surviving the first month?
I’d love to hear how January was for you, even if you aren’t doing a low/no buy year! Did you read any good books? What about a new show that you want to share? And I’m always up for recipe recommendations!
Thanks so much for reading!
xx Gillian
Love that you start seeing your low buy as an opportunity instead of punishment. This seems like a greater mindset to have.
While I technically didn't buy too much I definitely ordered more than I felt comfortable with and ended up returning the vast majority 🙈
I stuck with my low buy pledge. I’m scheduled to go to my chosen thrift store on Wednesday for the once-a-month shop. I have a list and I’m excited to see what I can find.