Continuing to follow in Cait Flanders’ footsteps, I turned once more to the back of the book The Year of Less to see what my next steps should be. So far I’d followed the author’s instructions to the extent possible, coming up with a strong reason to complete a shopping ban, taking inventory of my belongings, determining my values, and decluttering my home. I’d also tried to adapt her recommendations regarding saving and reducing temptations so that they’d apply to my unique situation.
The next step recommended was something I felt, in part, I’d been doing all along. The author’s words are below:
6. Tell Everyone You Know
Start by telling your family, partner, and/or kids—especially anyone who lives in the same household as you and who is part of your family budget. Based on those conversations, you’ll need to decide together whether it’s something you want everyone to participate in or whether you’re going to start with leading by example and doing it alone. There might be some resistance from others, if you want everyone to get on board, so don’t push the idea. The most important thing, for now, is to make sure they know about your intentions to not shop for anything besides the essentials for a period of time. Explain what your goals are, how you think it can help you and your family, and even set some goals for what you’ll do with all the money you save.
After that, tell the people you spend the most time with. The more people you tell, the more likely it is that you’ll stick to your shopping ban, because you’ll feel the need to stay accountable to not only yourself but also to them. And I would suggest you have at least one accountability partner who you can call/text whenever you get the urge to shop, so they can stop you.
- Cait Flanders in The Year of Less (2018), p. 176
Before embarking on my own shopping ban, I of course had read the entire book The Year of Less, as well as read and considered somewhat the steps she recommends for undertaking the ban. I knew going in that accountability was a big element, and I aimed to create that accountability by posting my experiences on my blog.
This had been working. The act of sharing my Complete Home Inventory with the entire internet, to a point where literally any stranger could take a wide open look at all of my belongings, was both humbling and exhilarating. It gave me a sense of freedom in a strange way, I felt liberated from my belongings when I counted them, and again when I shared that count with the world.
I felt empowered by the act of choosing to continue owning my one, singular bobby pin.
The creation and publication of my Approved Shopping List also had an energizing effect. It made me consider purchases heavily, making sure I knew whether they would be approved or not. I’d taken great care in crating my Approved Shopping List so as to be restrictive, but well considered. I wanted to be able to get a bike, and to keep up my sticker habit on road trips while cutting out impulse purchases.
Still, I felt the accountability could be a bit more granular. I tried expanding my accountability by using a WhatsApp chat with my partner where I’d type into the chat what I’d spent money on. Ultimately though, it wasn’t something either of us engaged deeply with, and I stopped using it as a tool.
In addition, I’d always planned on taking a break from blog posts for the month of April so I could switch gears for National Poetry Writing Month. Every year in April I write 30 poems in 30 days; it is a herculean effort, and not something I wanted to do while also writing a blog post a week.
Cover image for my new Discord server, LESS.
With all of these factors in mind, I searched for some other angle for accountability. I wanted something that felt like a WhatsApp chat, but that had the powerful accountability factor of being publicly available to anyone who wanted to view it.
I came up with the idea to create a Discord server chronicling my year of LESS—something that functions as a cross between a group chat and a syndicate of all my blog posts, expenditures, and details of my experiences with the ban.
A screenshot of some of the lists in my new Discord server, LESS.
I’ve started the Discord with a few channels, as outlined in the photo above. I have plans to expand it and add more features in the future in a way that feels natural and in alignment with my use of it. For now, these are the channels on the server:
#general
Anyone who joins is invited to post their thoughts, comments, suggestions and feedback for the shopping ban. I’ll be in there too, responding and interacting with shopping-ban related comments.
#blog-posts
This channel has direct quick links to read any blog post I’ve written on the shopping ban, and is an easier way to get to the specific post you’re thinking of than scrolling through the entire blog page on my website.
#shopping-ban-rules
Before I returned The Year of Less to the library, I wrote down all of the rules and recommendations the author makes in the back of the book, and I have added them to the Discord. This is a great place to start if you’re feeling inspired to take on a shopping ban of your own!
#my-lists-for-the-ban
I’ve reproduced my three lists for the shopping ban on this channel, including the Essentials List, the Approved Shopping List, and the Nonessentials List—a list of the things I CANNOT buy during the shopping ban.
#what-i-didnt-buy
One way I cope with the discomfort of wanting to buy something and choosing to not actually buy it is by taking a photograph of the thing that has caused me to want to shop. I’ve found that taking a photo of the item often scratches the same itch that makes me want to buy it, and I don’t think I have ever gone back for an item I took a photo of. I sometimes also send the photo to a friend who the item reminds me of, which turns the urge to shop into an opportunity for human connection.
On this channel I’ll be posting photos and descriptions of things I chose not to buy!
#shopping-tracker
Here I am posting line items for each and every purchase I make. For now the list includes purchases of physical items which are not consumable, and I have plans to expand it in the future to other kinds of spending.
I’ve also created a private channel where I can pop on and write down how much I spent, when and where. Having this information centralized makes it much easier for me to track spending than trying to retroactively remember what each line item on my bank statement is from. I’ve downloaded Discord on ALL of my phones so that I never very far from the ability to log in and track my spending.
This will be a useful way for me to keep all of my shopping ban efforts in one place, while also introducing the more persistent accountability of the internet panopticon. I’m open to suggestions for how this space can evolve and change over time, I’m learning that organization and Minimalism are not things that come naturally to everyone, and that this is an interesting thing for people to see me do.
Thank you for reading about my year of LESS so far, and about my desire for ROOTS and my endeavors to PERSIST and follow my INTUITION. I hope you’ll stick around for poetry in April, and if you want shopping ban updates in the meantime, Discord is the place to find them!