Summary

Eric, the author, reflects on the personal growth and insights gained from a 100-day commitment to minimalism, focusing on the mental shift from consumerism to experiences and generosity.

Abstract

Eric embarked on a journey of minimalism by vowing not to buy anything for 100 days, with exceptions for food, medicine, and gifts. This personal challenge was not driven by asceticism or environmentalism but by a realization that his life energy was being consumed by the pursuit and curation of material possessions. Throughout this period, he resisted targeted ads, discovered a lack of attachment to unmade purchases, and found that the true cost of consumerism was time rather than money. Eric also noted that spending on experiences rather than things brought greater happiness, and that his generosity increased as he redirected his desire to consume towards giving to others.

Opinions

Eric views targeted ads as persistent and intrusive, pushing him to buy despite his resolution.
He believes that the true cost of consumerism is the time spent on purchase-related activities, not the monetary expense.
Eric values experiences over possessions, citing studies that suggest experiences provide a greater happiness boost.
He sees the act of giving as a way to satisfy the urge to consume without accumulating more personal belongings.
Eric identifies as an "unconsumer," indicating a shift in identity from someone who acquires to someone who values being and experiences.
He acknowledges that his credit card bills did not significantly decrease, suggesting that his previous spending on material goods was not substantial compared to spending on experiences and gifts.

I Didn’t Buy Anything for One Hundred Days. Here’s What I Learned.

The real benefit is measured in hours, not dollars

I’m not sure where this minimalist urge came from. I’ve always been more of a maximalist, as one glance at my bag collection (54 at last count) or my coffee-maker constellation (six, more or less) or my leather-notebook ensemble (don’t ask). Enough, I decided. This must stop.

I know many people dismiss the efficacy of New Year’s resolutions, but I like them. They help me make vital course corrections. So, on January 1st I resolved to buy nothing. No bags, notebooks, coffee paraphernalia, clothes, electronics. Nothing. The only exceptions I made were for food and medicine, as well as gifts. Why deprive others because of my resolution, I figured?

I took this vow of nothing not for masochistic reasons or ecological ones, or out of some latent ascetic impulse. It was, rather, a nagging feeling that I was squandering my precious life energy on….crap. Not just the accumulation of crap but the curation of it, the hours spent searching not for any V90 dye-free coffee filter but the best V90 dye-free coffee filter. Always the best, always more. It was exhausting.

I’m proud to report: I did it. For the past one hundred days, I have bought nothing. Here is what I’ve learned:

1. Targeted Ads Made This Difficult At First

Apparently the digital gnomes that create targeted ads didn’t get the memo about my newfound minimalism. I was still bombarded with ads for bags, notebooks, coffee paraphernalia and various other products that I have trouble resisting. The digital gnomes were-persistent, and ruthless. The less I bought the more they bombarded me with ads, as if to say Come on Eric, we know you want to buy this contrast-stitching waxed canvas field bag. Just push the buy button, just….NO! I refused. One by one, I clicked on “Not interested in this and” and “This ad is not relevant” and even “This ad is offensive” until the gnomes finally relented and let me browse the Internet in peace.

2. I Don’t Miss Anything

I thought I’d pine for all my stillborn purchases. I did not. I can honestly say I don’t miss a single purchase not made. Yes, it took willpower and some gnome cancelling (see above) to reach this liberated state but once I arrived there was no going back. Just as vegetarians no longer crave meat, I no longer crave stuff.

My project isn’t about minimalism per se — after all, I still own a lifetime’s worth of accumulated stuff. It is about a shift in mentality from having to being. I am now an unconsumer. Yes, I still gaze occasionally at the vast materialist landscape — commercials, storefronts, unboxing videos — but it is a distant and alien landscape. Like the surface of Mars, I know it exists, but I am not an astronaut and have no desire to visit.

3. I Have More Free time. A Lot More

This is perhaps the greatest benefit to being an unconsumer: time. Hours and minutes are the only true resources we possess — or more precisely, borrow — yet you would never know it watching people (including myself, until recently) squandering time on stuff. It’s not the actual purchasing of said stuff — that takes mere seconds — but the time invested in all those purchase-adjacent activities. Amazon reviews. YouTube videos. Friends weighing in, whether they were asked or not.

Never before has it been so easy to buy so much stuff, and yet it feels more time consuming than ever. We devote countless hours — days! — to finding the best stuff, tracking the arrival of our stuff, learning how to operate our stuff, repairing our stuff, misplacing our stuff, reviewing our favorite stuff (so that others may buy more stuff), and returning stuff we don’t like. As an unconsumer, I have catapulted myself clear of this insanity.

I recently took my Mom to Costco to be fitted for hearing aids. I had an hour or so to kill while the audiologist did her work. Normally, I would have spent that hour surveying the aisles with hungry, consumer eyes. Not this time. My boundaries were clear. If I can’t swallow it or gift it, I can’t buy it. I spent the hour reading a novel that had languished, unopened, on my bookcase for years.

4. I’m Not Saving Much Money

This one surprised me. I thought that, surely, with a prohibition on amassing stuff I would save money. I did not. My credit card bills hardly dipped at all. How can this be?

One reason is that my various purchases never amounted to that much money in the first place. Their real cost was exacted in hours, not dollars. Another reason is that while I did not buy any stuff, I did spend money on experiences: movies, vacations, gym memberships. All allowed because, as several studies show, money spent on experiences generates a much bigger happiness boost than money spent on stuff. And unlike that large screen TV, a vacation doesn’t clutter your living room or need constant updating. It leaves no sticky residue.

There’s one more explanation for my persistent credit card bills, which brings me to my fifth and final outcome of one hundred days of buying nothing.

5. I Am More Generous

As I said, I purposefully carved out an exemption for gifts. I can spend all the money I want on others. And I did: a necklace for my wife, a sweatshirt for my daughter, a new memory-foam bed for my dog. Not only did this permit me to behave altruistically, it also gave me a chance to scratch that old consumer itch without violating my buy-nothing oath. It is a gentle scratching, though, not the abrasive, crazed scraping that marked my before-life. Other people’s stuff, it turns out, doesn’t weigh you down. In fact, the act of giving lightens your load.

That’s just one of the reasons why I’m extending my buy-nothing policy for another one hundred days.