87. No Buy ‘25 Challenge

In this episode, Stacy Heimburger discusses her journey with the 'No Spend 25' challenge, sharing her motivations for decluttering and reducing unnecessary purchases. She reflects on the impact of clutter on her mental well-being and the importance of mindful spending. Throughout the conversation, she outlines her personal rules for the challenge, shares her experiences with purchases, and encourages listeners to consider joining her in this lifestyle change for improved financial wellness and mental clarity.

Takeaways:

• Decluttering can significantly reduce anxiety and improve mental clarity.
• Establishing personal rules for a no spend challenge is essential.
• Mindful spending helps in recognizing unnecessary purchases.
• Thrifting can be a sustainable alternative to buying new items.
• The challenge can lead to a reset in priorities and lifestyle.
• Tracking purchases can enhance accountability during the challenge.
• Experiencing the dopamine rush from shopping can be misleading.
• Involving family in the challenge can create a supportive environment.
• The journey of decluttering is ongoing and requires commitment.
• Joining a community or finding accountability partners can enhance the experience.

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This episode was produced by The Podcast Teacher: www.ThePodcastTeacher.com.

Transcript

Hey guys, I wanted to do this episode about my no buy 25. So I know that I've mentioned it in prior podcast episodes, but I haven't really talked about it fully. And I wanted to let you know what's going on, especially since we're getting sort of mid year. And I think it's a great opportunity for me to double down and it's maybe an opportunity if you want to join me. So.

I want to just tell you why I wanted to do this. So decluttering has been really something I know that I need to do. I absolutely feel the anxiety when there is clutter. Having two boys, a husband, a dog, multiple businesses, clutter really builds up in our house. I had a tendency to overbuy. My husband had a tendency to overbuy.

and neither one of us were really good at letting go of things. So I like to say he's a little bit more of a hoarder than I am, but neither of us are great at being minimalist at all. So we've got two buyers, multiple reasons to buy and not a lot of desire to throw things out. So you can see where that can get out of hand really, really quickly. And so it really just got to kind of a breaking point.

So in 2024, I had a challenge of getting rid of 160 bags of stuff. And that could be donate trash, whatever. I did not meet that goal, but I did enough to see the light at the end of the tunnel. So I got a few spaces, really nice and organized and clean. And it really, I could see how much

more relaxed I could be in those spaces, how much less anxiety I had in those spaces. And so I really took a look at what my goal was for this year and knew that I wanted to continue to declutter, but it's kind of like in medicine, right? If I'm giving IV fluids, but then I'm giving someone medicine to make them pee, like what about I'm just filling from the top and emptying from the bottom. I'm not really.

Stacy Heimburger (02:28.406)

making a lot of headway and I felt like we were doing the same thing in our house. I was decluttering, but we were still bringing more stuff in and it very quickly just got out of hand. it kind of negated a lot of my decluttering efforts and I really didn't like that because it's not easy for me to do that. It is kind of hard to let go of some things for me. So I really didn't like that I was undoing my own progress.

Stacy Heimburger (03:01.345)

by just bringing more stuff in. So I knew I wanted to stop that. And right around the same time as that, I saw someone on Instagram talking about how they had done a no spend 2024 and how it went pretty okay for them. So they did a no spend and they get rid of a certain amount of things per day.

And then I think I saw someone else talk about decluttering and what their plan was. And I thought, you know, I could do this. I could really do this. I think we have enough stuff. We have, what really got me with our stuff was when you knew you had something and you couldn't find it. And so you had to get it again. And nothing infuriates me more.

then re-buying something I know I have, I just can't find it because it's not where it needs to be because there's too much clutter. And so I really just lost my mind about it. And so I think all of those things just happened in the perfect storm. I also knew that we had a lot of travel this year. I was speaking at a couple of conferences. I knew we were taking this trip to Italy. The boys are going to sleepaway camp this summer. And so we had a lot of pretty large

spend items that were coming up that were already planned. And so it really just made sense to me to just shut the wallet down otherwise. Like we had already decided where the money was going and we really didn't need to waste any more, especially when we don't need any more stuff. I think the final sort of icing on the cake was the kids have too much stuff. They were getting birthday and Christmas presents that they weren't.

even opening. Like they were opening a couple, but they had so much stuff. They really didn't open all of it. Like I still have Lego sets from last Christmas, from like Christmas 23 that they haven't opened. And so I didn't want to be teaching them this habit of excess either. So I just think all of those things came together and I was like, something's got to change, right? So my rules, the beauty of

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of the no-spend challenge is you can really make your own rules. So my oldest boy grows pretty fast. I knew he would need clothes. As I keep going with my weight loss and fitness, my body composition changes, I thought I might need some clothes and need, we could argue that, but for my rules, we were gonna need some. But what I wanted to do was thrift our clothes if possible.

So I use Thread Up, there's lots of services, but my rule was that if we needed something, we could thrift it. that was the other reason I wanted to do this. I almost forgot. There was a Netflix documentary called By Now, just about the over consumption. And that kind of hit right as these other things hit. And I was like, okay, it's over. So that was really my thrifting reason is that there's too much

too much new being produced and not utilized and just it's so much in landfills and everything else. But we can talk about all that later. But for us, really that documentary made an impact. And so I wanted to do refurbished or threaded, reusable clothing. wanted to thrift or

I just didn't wanna buy new if I didn't have to. So that was the rule for me and JT. We could get thrifted items. I was gonna try not to buy anything new. Obviously they need shoes. You can't really thrift little boy shoes. If you've had little boys, you know what I mean. They just eat them. They destroy them. I don't know. So there were a few things for the kids that were gonna be okay. And then obviously essentials. And that's where really you could argue some things. So.

I'll tell you so far what I've bought during the challenge. So I'm recording this mid-May. I'm not sure when you'll listen to it, probably later in June. I have bought a few things. I really thought about them very mindfully. And then I want to tell you what I noticed after I bought them, because I thought that was pretty telling as well. So one of my first items, I have not been able to find my earbuds.

Stacy Heimburger (07:42.318)

They are on an extra set of keys. I refuse to buy new ones because I know they are here in this house somewhere or in my car. They're somewhere. And so I did buy a pair of plug-in headphones for my phone. They were about $20. I do use them pretty often in my work when I talk to my private, my patients, from my concierge medicine practice.

I talk to them on the phone a lot, so I like to be able to have the headphones. So I did need them. I did find that they were relatively essential and I was not gonna replace the $100 item. I replaced it with a $20 item that would work good enough. So that was one of my purchases and I did find that pretty necessary. Now the sort of kicker in the pants on that is that I did replace my phone this year. So I went from a Lightning plugin to a USB-C plugin.

So I have had to buy another set of plug-in headphones. I've actually bought two sets, not super happy about that, but again, they're pretty essential for my work, so I did get them. Okay, what else did I buy? I did buy some craft supplies. I am, if you're not from Louisiana, in Louisiana, we have this thing called Mardi Gras, and there are different crews of floats, and lots of the crews have

Really special throws so special things that we throw off of the floats and so I'm an iris I've been in it for 15 years I think and we do sunglasses and so members of the crew will hand decorate items and then they're really special and you throw them and it's kind of a big deal and so I did get some like hot glue and some beads and stuff and some sunglasses to do sunglasses for to finish up because we rode in

February or March, so I got some and then I got some extra for next year. This was an interesting thing. So I absolutely felt the dopamine surge of getting to shop. So I had decided that this was necessary. will argue, my higher self will argue with myself at the time that it probably was not really necessary. But because I had found this like slight loophole,

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to the no purchasing because this was a necessary item for Mardi Gras, I kind of went a little bit overboard. I didn't spend a lot. Like my spending was definitely under $100, but I just found it super interesting that I was spending and I was super, super enjoying it, which was just, I found interesting. So I definitely felt the dopamine surge from that.

And so I was just really curious about it and just noted it. The other thing, I did thrift a couple of clothes for travel and I have thrifted a couple of things for JT. Like I said, we have bought them some new shoes. So that was a purchase. They needed cleats. I will say, so for baseball, I went to the thrift store. I went to Goodwill. I found them nearly brand new baseball pants for like $2.99 a piece. So I will always be doing that from now on.

While I was in Italy, I did buy an ornament. We usually get an ornament for our tree if we travel, so I did get that. And then I did get a small purse. I really am a sucker for Italian leather. And so I had pre-decided that we're not gonna go to Italy anytime soon again, so I did get that. And then I got a few small gifts for other people. Birthday gifts are in the essential, allowed to buy.

but we had a lot of people helping us get our kids everywhere they needed to go. So we did wanna buy them a little thank you, happy. So we did that. And then I've done a few business supplies. So starting the YouTube channel, I got a new webcam. So a few minor purchases for that. The kids summer camp has really pushed me to the limit.

I did get trunks, the big trunks for them from someone in the neighborhood, which was amazing. So I didn't have to buy those. They did need like backpacks and a couple of other like sleeping bags and something for the ground. So I did have to do a rather large purchase there that I was not super happy about. Again, my higher self would argue maybe if I had scoured the internet, maybe I could have found them thrifted. I didn't, so.

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when I look back on the whole year, that one I'll probably question myself if I should have tried a little bit harder to thrift. But I did realize there's just a lot that is unnecessary. Like in 2024, I had deleted my Amazon app. So my Amazon spending went down. Now it's near nothing, which is.

So great, like it really used to stress me out to see the Amazon packages outside the door when I would come home. So it really makes me happy that they're not there when I come home now. I would love to say that I've noticed like a huge difference in our savings since we stopped shopping as much. But again, we had a lot of large expenses. So we kind of just saved for those.

Interestingly, my husband has cut down way, way back on his shopping too. I think because when we're both doing it, you can't blame it on either one, right? Because it's all happening, but it would be really obvious if he was buying a lot of stuff since I'm not buying any stuff. So that's been really nice too, because I do feel like now any decluttering we're doing makes a little bit more effort. It's really lovely.

So I've found a lot of benefits to it. It is helping me with a little bit of mental clarity. It's helping me realize like I don't need anything really if I really just take that mindful moment and think about it. And so I just want you to think about it. Like maybe this is something that you wanna do. I'm ready to double down for the rest of the year. And then I'm gonna go back and see like did I miss any purchases and see.

how much I spent this year on stuff. And I'm hoping it's not really gonna be that much. So far, so good. mean, about six months in and I think it's going really, really well. So for those of you who wanna try a no-spend challenge, maybe you just wanna do a month. Maybe you wanna like go off the deep end with me and try the whole rest of the year. I do like just saying no-buy 25. It makes me happy to say it. So if you wanna do that, I encourage you to do that.

Stacy Heimburger (14:39.33)

What I would do is just set some rules for yourself. What's essential, what's allowed, what's not, you get to decide. And then find some ways to keep yourself accountable. Like maybe you track it, maybe you tell your friends. I will say anytime I've made a purchase, I've told somebody, so I kind of have to own up to it. So think about maybe doing that. But in summary, if you want to try it, I think it's a great idea. I really do think it's helped me reset priorities. I think it's helped me.

really see a difference in my decluttering, so I'm not like counteracting all that hard work. And if you're gonna do it, please reach out and let me know and we'll like kind of support each other. I think it'll be really fun. So hopefully that was helpful and hopefully you will join me on this. I will talk to you next week. That's it for me, bye.