No buy or low buy 2023

[TheOGCCL]

Starting a new thread for the new year. I really must do better. Pretty sure I am in need of nothing after my 2022 spending spree.

Ironically I think this board sets me off a bit.

I’m better with a blanket no spend but how dull. Still thinking about my ‘rules’, eg set a budget or an item limit.

I need to avoid the sales as many mistakes happen there.

All welcome who want to cut down for environmental or ethical or financial reasons, or simply the satisfaction of buying second hand, or the ease of getting dressed when you have less stuff.

I can recommend Lauren Bravo’s book How To Break Up With Fast Fashion.

Its a bit like eating meat, if we all collectively did it a bit less, the world would be a better place.

Declaring a jumper -- I was visiting a friend and we went to an outlet near her joules has jumpers for £20! Got a fully wool jumper down from £99.95 didn't need it but it'll be nice on our getting our baby to sleep walks.

Woohoo!

I haven't bought anything yet as such but an online order is en route.

Well that was a fail! I went to delete my saved payment method from a website and ended up buying more stuff 🤪 . I need to never log in, I think that's the only way.

April hasn't gone to badly, I'm sticking to my reduced spending amount for the past few months. Probably unrealistic to have a no spend May so I'll settle for cutting my spending by half again

My online order was a bust. Nothing was perfect in fit and fabric so I will be returning the lot.

Fallen off the wagon slightly, but it was a considered and sensible secondhand purchase, at least. £8.25 for a pair of running leggings, two exercise shirts, all needed and a navy blue t-shirt that wasn't really, but it was cute and only £2.50.
I only went in looking for some shirts for ds. Ah well! I think it's all right as long, as I wear and enjoy them before donating or recycling later.

I've done ok I think.
I'm returning many more items than I used to, if they're not exactly right for me. I've bought a couple of cotton/linen shirts in various shades of chambray/blues. Plus a pair of my preferred button fronted straight jeans from eBay. So I've spent about £90. My budget is around £40, but the rest came from eBay sales.
I'm now listing my summer clothes on the Whering app & I've archived all of my heavy winter clothes. But there is some overlap with the lighter brighter Cashmere jumpers. However it's still not the weather for my summer clothes yet.

Fallen off the wagon 😮 A few vest tops that were needed, so don’t count as over-spending. Then a red knitted waistcoat, linen sleeveless top and trousers from Boden. Not needed, but great prices in the sale (my downfall) and will be worn through the summer 😳

Last day of the month! I did buy some things but I sold more, so in terms of stuff in the house the number is definitely going down.

I sold 15 items on Vinted; used the credit to buy DC sandals, and 3 items for me; an embroidered blouse which was a total flop, an anthropologie coat which is gorgeous, and an &Other stories dress which I'm slightly on the fence about. So the total cost was zero, and I might stick 2 items back on Vinted.

Stuff I spent money on: 2 pairs of gold earrings which I love; I'd been wanting to get some small hoops for ages.
A ghost slip skirt which I do love, but I'm a little unsure how much I'll actually use.

So all in all, not that expensive a month and very happy to have sold some stuff. Have also decided to curb online shopping since I found out that half of all returns go directly to landfill. Next month my wishlist includes new swimwear, as I actually don't have anything apart from a totally stretched-out bikini

I really must discipline myself to sell stuff I’ve been meaning to sell since last year. Trying to recover from a bad dose of Covid at present though. I must do it when I feel better.

That pesky Boden sale!!

Declaring £30 on a dress but I do love it.

£346.50 running for the year, sounds a lot put into a figure but definitely an improvement on last year.

I have a few things I need to buy this month though so might be not so good.

Declaring: one silk shirt, one cream waist belt, one necklace that I think I shall get a lot of daily wear out of (the latter doesn't really count - I have always bought myself a small bit of jewellery with any bonus and am then boringly sensible with the rest).

I think that brings the total to 10 or so (and am on a limit of 12 items this year). Sigh. I find summer clothes much less appealing than winter clothes - I have the same wardrobe of wrap cotton dresses, wrap skirts, linen shirts, denim midi skirts and shorts that I wear year after year (plus enough wedding guest attire to last me several decades) so hoping I shall be able to restrain myself over the summer months.

Knowing I have a limit also means that I am being much pickier with my purchases (they really have to count). Has also encouraged me to get a jacket re-lined and some boots overhauled at the cobbler.

After no spend for nearly 4 months, I weakened. We have booked our first cruise and I definitely need new clothes.

I’ve ordered 3 new dressy dresses for evenings and 2 bikinis, well one is a tankini. £400 spent but some might go back. Still need shorts, vest tops and a couple of sundresses.

I have been really good this year and this thread has really helped. The money we are saving has meant we could book our cruise so definitely worth it.

I’d like to commit to a no buy until the end of August. I’ve really cut back in the last couple of years but finding purchases creeping up again this year.

My exceptions are a pair of jeans from M&S if they get my size back in stock, and I’ve got my eye on a pair of trainers in Clarks but they are £100 so watching to see if they have any offers. I’ve also got £60 of Fatface vouchers to spend but will only use if I actually see anything in store.

Epic fail. We've booked our summer holiday - our first holiday abroad since before lockdown - and I've got very little suitable.

So far I've bought:
Arket linen shirt
M&S beach dress
Tankini and big bikini knickers from Bravissimo
Sunhat
Vest top

I will need some shorts, at least one more dress and probably some sandals at the very least.

Confession. Wasted £100 on band merchandise. Now let's see if I can manage to last more than a week without spending anything else 😅🙏

I had a fairly epic fail on day 3 of the month; I spent £180 at Liberty's to get their free gift. Honestly, I needed a night cream and a toner this month - they have enough in them for a few more days, and would have fallen under the replacement rule, but I went on to spend an extra £60 too. I got a beautiful Liberty candle and a gorgeous handwash, and will give those as a housewarming gift to best friend in July when she moves

Clothing-wise, I've actually made £40 by selling a few things so thats awesome

So far so good for May here!! I have a few things I need to pick up but I haven't brought anything this far.

Low buy here. Bought some new slim fit white jeans. Can't stop wearing them they look so spring like against my other jeans and now looking for a silver or other metallic belt to go with them.
Also had a wedding invitation, might just shop my wardrobe for that, we'll see.

Still making my clothes. Haven’t bought any still. Made a dress, a skirt and a top. Dead stock fabric, so would go into landfill if it wasn’t purchased and used. I have got a few ready to wear clothes out of the wardrobe to sell too.

@AnnieSnap that's so cool! I would love to see some of the stuff you have made, if you feel comfortable sharing. My grandmother was an excellent seamstress and did my graduation dress, and loads of clothes for me when I was a teenager. I really wish I had inherited her knack for it. Learning to make clothes is part of my retirement plan!

I spent £70 at COS over the weekend; partly planned, partly not. I got a pair of loose summer shorts, which were on my summer wish list, and a boatneck stripy tee which someone linked here and I fell in love with. I have a few t-shirts I no longer love so I'll need to cull that pile a bit. I just transferred my £55 Vinted balance to my bank account so the goal is to sell £15 more this month so I offset the cost of my new items.

I am joining this thread a rather late!

I've been spending too much and need to stop it.

19th May. No clothes bought since 23rd March, nearly 2 months. But I need to declare £30 on some Haflinger slippers. They were in the sale. Not sure this really counts, I'm going to consider it as part of our bedroom revamp. We're all switching bedrooms on our house.

Stage 1 of the grand bedroom swap is done. DH and I have now moved to a much smaller bedroom, the only room in the house with an en suite, which was always used as a playroom/teens room.

It has wooden floor and tiles and my feet get cold. We were going to get rugs but there's not enough space really. So I decided to get some washable wool bedroom slippers for the bedroom/ensuite for when I have a shower instead.

We have spent money on the grand bedroom swap, replaced our 16 year mattress and broken bed frame with new ones from Warren Evans (cost £2235, but hoping they will last and the old ones were well past their use by date!). And a wool mattress topper from Devon Duvets for £190. And we bought 2 new chests of drawers from M&S to match the wardrobes we got when DH moved on 6 years ago, cost £1370, the old ones were much too big for our new bedroom but will be reused in other rooms. And we bought new curtains at £75 as the old ones in the room were very faded and had been repaired many times and were not blackout. We also bought paint from Lakeland Paints for £200 to decorate the bedroom and en-suite.

The great thing is we are now on a different floor from the teens who like to go to bed much later than us and we have achieved successful noise separation! No more nagging them to use the bathroom before we go to bed, they now have the upstairs bathroom to themselves and we can't hear them using it or talking/moving around. And we are much more comfortable on our new mattress, which is currently on the floor as we only ordered the new bed frame when we dismantled the old one to move and discovered it was beyond repair.

So this was all a good move. DS1 will be going to uni in September so in the summer the teens will swap bedrooms so DS2 can have DS1's bigger one. But I am sure they will both be around some of the time for years to come and so better noise separation will be good for the longer term. And as we get older we might not want to our bedroom on the 2nd floor of a 3 storey house, so being on the 1st floor we might feel happier about living here longer as we like the house and location.

£20 declared for some sandals from Clarks
Only purchase so far this month.

£22 on a beach dress from Sainsburys. No guilt though, it’s really hard to find ones that aren’t either horrible material or ridiculously expensive. This one is a very loose-cut shirt dress style, linen/viscose blend so soft and floppy rather than stiff and scratchy, and a nice bright green colour- bright enough to be summery, but dark enough not look grubby in five minutes. Perfect!

Thank you @Pigtailsandall I made this top, skirt and dress. 🙂