No-spend January

An article was recently published in the Wall Street Journal (and reprinted on MSN) entitled "The Americans who are going a whole month without buying anything."

January, it seems, is a popular month to engage in a financial fast, presumably after the excesses of the holiday season. "Fueled by social media," notes the article, "some consumers are starting the new year with 'No Buy January.' It is a challenge to eliminate purchases of anything nonessential – like clothes, skin-care products and electronics – for the entire 31 days of January."

I applaud this trend, and I'll tell you why.

Waaaaaay back in 1993, when Don and I first moved rural, we moved without jobs. Naively we thought we could find work in our chosen fields in our new location, but we were wrong. It's the reason we were so determined to keep the tankard business running; it was an opportunity to work from home. (This was, of course, long before online remote work was an option.)

Long story short, we had a crash course in frugality decades ago and learned to pinch pennies until they shrieked. That frugality has never left us. We constantly tweak and adjust our spending and eliminate excess that might creep in. When times are fat, we spend more. When times are lean, we cut back. This has been the regular cycle throughout our married life.

But even in financially "fat" times, our spending is fairly frugal and tends to focus on things that will be useful on the homestead (tools, lumber, fencing, etc.). And for lean times – such as the aftermath of my job loss a year ago – it's a fairly simple thing to cut back our spending because we're already so used to it, and because we've already whittled away the excess.

In fact, we're SO used to it that I forget frugality is a learned skill rather than universal knowledge, and not everyone is instinctively familiar with it. So when things like  "No Buy January" trend on social media, it's an opportunity for people to delve into this endlessly fascinating realm of financial thriftiness.

Consider the efforts of a "No Buy January" participant named Gillian Shieh. "Looking at my finances, they look OK," she said. "But just emotionally, it feels stressful."

Here's what the article said about Ms. Shieh's approach: "Shieh, 32, plans to resist buying clothes, skin-care products, coffee and alcohol this month to cut her spending on non-essentials to $300, down from her typical monthly tally of between $1,000 and $1,500. The one area with wiggle room is eating, typically her biggest area of discretionary spending. Now she caps ordering meals and eating out to a maximum of three times a week, compared with as many as 10 in a pre-challenge week."

At first I was horrified at the amount of money wasted by eating out 10 times a week. During our financial "fat" times, we might eat out six times a year (and now it's more like once or twice a year). But really, that's more of an urban vs. rural thing. There are nowhere near ten restaurants in our closest town, whereas urbanites have a far broader selection of culinary opportunities. Ms. Shieh is learning a valuable skill about food costs and home cooking, something I heartily applaud.

Some influencers are pushing this frugality trend, which is nice to see. "Taylor Van Luven, a 24 year-old content creator from Ottawa, just finished her first 'low-buy year,'" notes the article. "After losing her job in January of last year, Van Luven set out to buy only the essentials – spending $30 a week or less – throughout all of 2025, a journey she shared on Instagram."

Woot! I love this kind of stuff! Good for Ms. Van Luyen. Keep it up!

Frugality is a powerful financial weapon. It's so powerful that even now, 33 years after embarking on our rural journey, we are still reaping the benefits. If a "No Buy January" is what it takes to get people to re-think their spending habits, I'm all in favor.