How would you cope with the challenge of giving up on consumerism for a full year? Not spending any money besides your standard everyday expenses like your mortgage and utility bills would be easy for a few days. Possible for a week or two. But what about 12 full months?

[from guest blogger Richard Adams]

In her book Not Buying It, author Judith Levine sets out to do just this. Fed up with our consumer society after a particularly stressful Christmas, Judith wonders what life would be like to consciously give up spending any unnecessary money.

And with this thought, Judith and her partner Paul attempt the impossible. Now, the author is honest from the outset about her intentions. That she still has a mortgage to pay. That she will need fuel for her car as she works freelance and has to visit clients. And that giving up on “unnecessary” spending is a rather difficult to define concept. She and Paul regularly discuss what is really necessary and what isn’t.

Basic food provisions are necessary though wine and fancy overpriced (yet delicious) foods aren’t.

The year starts out a struggle with Judith’s desire for new clothes and other frivolous items  create a constant battle. And she admits to giving in a few times. But as the months progress, like giving up sugar in your tea, things seem to get easier and easier for the couple.

They wean themselves off our consumer culture, looking more deeply at some of the concepts around frugal living and consumerism. They stop going out for expensive dinners and to the cinema and instead spend time at the library and in having friends over for home-cooked meals.

And whilst they deliberately go looking for this low cost or free entertainment, the couple themselves seem surprised at how much they are enjoying themselves after some time, and also shocked at not only how much money they manage to save over the course of a year (including completely paying off a credit card) but also how they have stopped arguing about money.

It should be said that there really in nothing revolutionary about this book. It isn’t written with any green agenda and doesn’t contain too many tips. It is more an easy-to-read story of how one couple coped without unnecessary purchases. We are privy to their few guilty purchases, their struggles over what they should and shouldn’t buy, the jealousy they sometimes feel when friends splash out on new gadgets and their growing acceptance of living on a budget.

If you’re interested in frugal living or our consumer culture then this book makes a pleasant read ideal for reading by the pool on vacation or snuggling up with in bed.

Richard blogs about eco living tips at Eco Living Advice (EcoLivingAdvice.com).

Image courtesy of bluepuntobear.com

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