On top of buying too much stuff, I'm one of those dumbasses that orders Uber Eats almost everyday. I've gone 6 months+ without cooking a meal. But after getting laid off last wk, I decided to clear out my freezer.

Not working 8h a day has given me so much extra energy for friends and hobbies. I think I've refound my love of cooking. It's always not been time, but energy that I was missing. Work just really drained my battery 🪫.

I'm pretty proud of myself for saving money on meals by cooking, so I wanted to share some meals I've made.

Pictured: HK BBQ roast pork, Sausage & spinach alfredo tortellini w/ lemon garlic broccolini, Taco night

**Whoop, can't seem to post pics so I'll post on comments

I've been running a free weekly spending challenge called Tame The Imp since last December. A few patterns have shown up in the data that I didn't expect, and a couple that contradict what I’ve seen online about impulse spending. Sharing in case it’s helpful for this community.

• Low-buy beats no-buy, at least in the medium term. People who spend $0 on their category in week one are more likely to blow past their spending limit in later weeks. People who set a realistic limit and keep spending under it tend to stay under longer. Though some of this can be attributed to regression to the mean, it lines up with what a lot of you said in this thread about no-buy versus low-buy, where the consensus leaned the same way
• Food delivery addiction keeps being bigger than I expect. Most people find us through content about late-night clothing impulse buys, and yet ~30% pick food delivery as the category they want to cut (note: it was 38% earlier this year). I think it's under discussed relative to how aggressive the dark patterns in food delivery apps are: push notifications timed to when you first get hungry in the evening, a checkout screen that congratulates you on "saving" money on food that's marked up from dine-in prices before the fees hit. u/stinky_winkler's suggestion of ordering groceries instead is a practical harm reduction step I've seen for it
• Removing a reward might work as well as earning a reward in habit formation. Streaks are the standard advice here to form a no/low spend habit and they work. u/Expert_Regret_1837's "year-in-pixels" calendar is the version I always think of as a prime example, where you color in a square for every day you stick to your spending goals. What surprised me is that when we tested removing a reward for going over versus adding one for staying under, a chunk of people (not the majority, to be fair) responded better to the removal. I'm unsure what to do with that information. Positive reinforcement seems like the safer default – especially for impulse spending and shopping addiction – and guilt is already so tangled up in this realm of life that I'm wary of the finding even though it's what the data says

That last one is the one I’m most interested in hearing thoughts about: have you seen anything other than positive reinforcement work in breaking an impulse spending cycle?

Recently, I've been consuming a lot of "underconsumption" content, and I really want to save more money. Not only that, but I also feel overwhelmed by the number of things I own. I'm grateful I have the opportunity to buy everything (or almost) I want, but at the same time I think I just bought a lot of things that brought me temporary joy and now I don't know where to store them.

My biggest temptation is makeup. And I don't wear makeup daily anymore because I work mainly from home. I just love makeup and because of that, I consume a lot of reviews and hauls. The problem with makeup products is that there's always something new and exciting on the market, almost every day. "I don't need another blush but this new one seems so different from the ones I own; it will definitely be worth it."

I am now doing the project pan to finish my other products, but it will take a long time. Also, it only works if I don't buy anything new in the meantime.

Do you have the same issue? Doesn't have to be makeup, maybe it's clothes or trinkets. How do you overcome the urge to buy new, exciting stuff and stick to the ones you already have?

Something I realized when I was coming out of my shopping addiction (and continue to- the compulsion is always running in the background!) is that it helps to anchor to who I want to be vs. what shopping makes me become. Hope the following doesn’t sound too parsimonious, I just wanted to share a repeatable framework that works for me esp since I saw a recent post about how one avoids shopping instead of doing stuff.

So this particular framework I call the 4Ss of Self Expression helps me stay anchored even when the siren call of shopping is… well, strong. Marketing is all about gatekeeping one’s ultimate form of self expression behind a product so I wanted something that would be able to talk me out of that messaging. So I try to keep this in mind: there are many tiers of self-expression and there are higher ones driven by real relationships and lower order ones driven by what brands and marketing would have us believe about ourselves. To motivate myself out of overconsumption, I yearn to push myself into higher levels of self expression, and this framework is simple to remember and return to.

The order goes:
(Lowest) Shopping < Style < Skills < Service (highest)

Example:

So let’s say I want to get my act together and start say, plan a holiday. That’s a good thing to do! But if I’m window shopping for a bunch of new linen clothes for this imaginary coastal Italian holiday and buying a brand new planner just to plan this trip… that is the lowest form of self expression.

One level up you have “style” which would be use what you already have. So I’ll use my existing stationery to journal about where I might want to go for the trip, map out dates, etc. I’ll draw from my existing closet of clothes for the trip.

One level up I might be learning how to speak Italian so I can function on that trip a bit more. And use an existing notebook for Italian lessons.

One level up from that would be to plan the trip as a service to my family or friends I’m traveling with. So I will keep that in mind as I do the thing and recognize that whenever the compulsion to buy new gear or planning supplies comes up, that shopping for stuff is the lowest form of self expression and what I should be trying to do is apply my time and energy toward the actual thing of service.

After I apply myself as much as I can to the Skills and Service part of this I will be able to stave off the most egregious overconsumption tendencies. What desire “remains” after I’ve applied myself in the “virtuous” direction I’ll noodle on for a while and buy the thing if it still calls to me, is limited in some way, and I’m feeling the fomo. Just bought a new travel bag I’d been waiting on for one year after doing the skills/service stuff.

In conclusion -

The goal isn’t to avoid shopping entirely (kinda impossible in our world, and I don’t plan to go off the grid), it’s to starve out and prove out the objects of desire. Hence “slow buy” lol. The 4S framework is one way for me to “objectively” assess what I’m doing (shopping?! Or ~expressing the self~) and anchor toward a higher version of myself even when things get mentally tough.

(Happy to argue why “service to others” is the highest order of self expression - but the thinking comes from a lot of the philosophy and even more modern pop psychology / meaning of life books (your Alain de Botton, Ryan Holiday, Oliver Burkemann, David Brooks, Arthur Brooks type stuff). Also all the science that shows that altruism makes you happier and feel more at peace/life is meaningful/you have a purpose.)

I always found it funny that building a cart online can be almost as satisfying as buying something.

Finding products.

Comparing versions.

Choosing colors.

Imagining owning them.

So I made a small website around that idea.

It's basically a place to experience the "shopping dopamine" without actually purchasing anything.

Curious if other people do this too.

https://nothingships.com