Right, let’s get this shit done, quick and dirty, maximum utility, minimum waffle.
There was a much more verbose draft of this on paper but I’ve lost the file pad it was in, something which you and I should both be thankful for as it was way too long and like most of what I write rambled all over the place.

First things first, this will only make sense in the context of Stop buying shit part one & part two, read those first, or don’t.

TL:DR

• I try to avoid as much advertising as possible.
• I don’t buy anything new unless it’s nonsensical or unhygienic to buy used.
• Even when buying used I try to keep unnecessary purchases to a minimum.

Advertising

Let’s look at the first point, avoiding advertising.

The world is completely saturated with advertising, you’re always going to see lots out there in the world, licking at your eyeballs. I don’t think there’s much you can do about that stuff. What we can address is the advertising snuggled around and nestled in the media we choose to deliberately interact with.

This advertising is the type most likely to get any measure of conscious attention from you, and is also much more likely to actually be relevant to you compared to some crap splashed on a wall in town, therefore it’s the most dangerous kind, and removing it will have the greatest effect.

A simple todo list for doing so:

• Install an ad blocker if you don’t have one installed already (If this is applicable to you: who are you, what are you doing, how did you find this site?)

• Unsubscribe from all shopping/marketplace mailing lists and mailers

• Uninstall any marketplace apps from your mobile phone, if for some reason you can’t uninstall them turn all superfluous notifications off

• Unsubscribe from/block any and all social media “content” that’s just advertising or focused around consumption:

  • Review channels
  • Unboxing/Product porn as entertainment channels (again, who, how, why?)
  • Forum threads about “What you bought today”
  • “Buy/Sell”, “Deal of the Day” etc. social media groups and chats
  • Probably half of your Youtube subscriptions that are just grasping weirdos that endlessly buy new crap to talk about¹

• If you still watch regular TV I’m not sure what you should do, I don’t watch TV and nobody I know under 40 does either ², I guess you could just record everything ahead of time and fast forward through the ad breaks but that feels inefficient.

And that’s pretty much it, I’m not sure what else you could do really, save moving into the woods.

Not buying stuff new

Not much to elaborate on, I just don’t buy stuff new unless I can’t feasibly or safely buy it used or where refusing to buy new breaks the “am I being mental?” test.

Some examples of things that I do in fact buy new:

• Food (whoa)
• Toiletries, medicines and hygiene items
• Underwear & socks
• Things sold by people I want to support, zines, indie games & music, etc.

The am I being Mental Test

A very simple test, if I’m out and about and find myself needing to buy something I ask the simple question: is refusing to buy this thing because it’s new or not strictly necessary obviously fucking insane or stupid? If the answer is yes I generally buy it, if the answer is no I generally don’t.

I rarely or ever have to actually buy anything unexpectedly, and this is probably common sense, but I felt it was worth pointing out I’m not an absolutist or obsessive about this stuff.

So onto point three.

How to start not buying stuff

OK, here we go. the actual thing I wanted to talk about, after 800 something words, the paper version was worse than this by the way, count yourself lucky.

I don’t buy stuff, even used, almost ever, I’ve gotten quite good at it. This is an easy habit to maintain now, despite everyone around me thinking it’s dumb, but it was actually a fairly difficult one to build, not complicated, just difficult.

First things first, another todo list, little shorty this time:

• Remember all those marketplaces and webshops you took off your phone?
  • Delete any saved credit/debit card information off of them
  • Log out and delete any autofill login data
• OK, now delete any bookmarks you have for them, and purge them from your search and web history (ctrl+h on Firefox and derivative browsers, search for name of site, right click, “forget site”)

This on its own does nothing long term but it was useful for getting through the initial bump, a little friction goes a long way at the start, and come on, you’re going to trust Ebay or Amazon with your card details? That’s just an obviously bad idea.

Little tricks like this and reducing your ad intake don’t really do all that much on their own, they might help a little bit, but really what you need to do is change your perspective on shopping and learn a bit about your brain and how fucking incompetent it is.

Let’s talk about two concepts; The Hedonic Treadmill and HALT.

The Hedonic Treadmill

This is a pretty well known phenomenon, the Hedonic treadmill is a catchy name for the tendency of human beings to return to a base line of happiness/fulfilment after experiencing positive or negative events.

It’s a process that functions to keep you more or less on track and invested in continuing to try in life, and assuming your baseline needs are met it means that you’ll return to a baseline level of happiness after any disruption sooner or later.

You ever buy something shiny and new and really enjoy it for like 2 weeks and then gone back to feeling like you did before?
BAMN, there it is, Hedonic Treadmill, you’re walking on it, always moving forward, never getting anywhere.

So buying stuff cannot really make you happy, but by the same logic not buying unnecessary things won’t make you unhappy.

Once I learned about this concept it was pretty readily observable in everyday life, it’s basically everywhere.

Once you know about the treadmill stepping off of it is pretty simple.
You just hop off, exactly like getting off a real treadmill.
However getting off is also bloody difficult, especially if you’re already off balance and running on fumes.
Just like a real treadmill.

So there was a period of knowing that I wanted to get off, but not having the energy and mindspace to actually do so, I’d kind of start getting off, then feel myself getting pulled back and down by the belt, and I would start running again. Let’s get off the treadmill metaphor for now, it’s been tortured enough already, poor thing.

Let’s talk about HALT.

Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired (HALT)

HALT isn’t a concept, it’s an acronym, it’s there in the header above this text, so I’m not going to type it out again.

HALT summarises the most common stressors that negatively impact decision making. It’s commonly used in addiction literature when talking about factors that lead to relapse.

Sounds really dramatic right? It really isn’t.
These stressors are the same for everyone and they effect everything, including shopping.

The HALT “method” consists of understanding the effect being in one or more of these states has on decision making, learning to recognise when you’re in a HALT state, and using that knowledge to halt (get it?) poor decision making, by stopping and addressing the stressor before going through with anything.

The specific implications of HALT, what constitutes each state, and how to recognise them are probably very complicated and nuanced if you’re a mental health professional that’s billing by the hour.

But I’m not that, so I think they’re pretty straightforward and that HALT is an easy method to use when making any kind of decision.

You’ve probably got the gist already: If you feel hungry, angry, lonely or tired, or any combination therefore, you’re going to find it hard to make good decisions.

Recognising when you’re in those states and trying to address them before making any decision, especially ones you might regret, is a good idea.

Even if you can’t address the stressor, recognising that it is effecting you and is harming your ability to think clearly makes it possible to mitigate it’s negative influence.

The implications for not buying stuff are obvious: avoid HALT states, avoid interacting with marketplaces and predatory content venues when in HALT states.

If you get the basic shit squared away everything else becomes easier. The same goes for any negative habit you want to break.

HALT and Advertising

The idea that people make impulse decisions when they’re off kilter isn’t especially novel, people have always known this.

Companies know this too.
And they all use it against you.

Remember all the things about turning off advertising and not interacting with shopping platforms outside of specific timeframes and context? This is a large part of why.

A basic real world example you’re already familiar with: everyone knows that you shouldn’t go grocery shopping when you’re hungry, because you’ll buy stuff you don’t need and don’t really want.

Why is that though? It’s partially an entirely natural response, you’re being exposed to lots of food when you’re hungry: you’re going to reach for more.

But it’s mostly because grocery chains know people are impulsive, and that they buy more when they’re hungry, and they use every trick in the book to maximise the effect.

This is why you get the smell of fresh bread³ when you walk into many supermarkets, it’s why you have to walk by junk food and high calorie slop on the way to vegetables, it’s why there’s always chocolate beside the till and intermittent islands of garbage nonfood in every aisle. Did you know that 70% of in store snack purchases are impulse purchases? The supermarkets do.

Now, imagine what kind of shenanigans you could get up to if you were a retail platform that had detailed information about millions of people’s habits and life rhythms and you had absolutely no moral compass. You might do things like send them advertising for food and food adjacent products 25 minutes before the average worker’s lunch time, or push videos about products that will definitely get women’s attention at 2am when you’re pinging between pornography and the suicide hotline.